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DISCOURSES AND SERVICES 



ON OCCASION OL 



THE DEATH 



OF THE LATH 



REY. RALPH WARDLAW. D.I). 




A. FULLAETOX AND CO. : 

LONDON. EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 



1854. 



J3/rzt>o 

. UJ3<95'J75~ 



EDINBURGH : 
FTTLLARTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK, 





ST 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL, 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON, GLASGOW. 



II. 

THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS IN THE PROSPECT OF 
DEATH, ...... 

BY JOHN BROWN, D.D., EDINBURGH. 



15 



III. 

ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH, . . . . 45 

BY WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER. D.D., EDINBURGH, 



IV. 

THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS, 

BY REV. NORMAN M'LEOD, GLASGOW. 



V. 

TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW, .... 137 

BY JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D,, GLASGOW 



ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 



ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 



[The Funeral Service was held in West George 
Street Chapel, on December 23, 1853, and com- 
menced a few minutes after 12 o'clock. The lower 
part of the chapel was filled by a large body of 
ministers of all denominations, and male members of 
the church and congregation, together with others; 
while the galleries were completely occupied by 
ladies. 

A part of Psalm ciii. having been sung, the Rev. 
A. Fraser, minister of Nile Street Congregational 
Church, read Psalm xc. and 1 Thess. iv. 13 to end; 
after which he engaged in prayer. 

The last three verses of Paraphrase liii. were then 
sung, and the Rev. Dr. Smyth of Free St. George's 
Church read 2 Cor. v., and the last part of Rev. vii. ; 
and offered prayer.] 

The Rev. Professor Thomson then delivered the 
following Address: 



4 address at the funeral. 

Christian Friends and Fellow-Mourners, 

Were I to be guided by the na- 
tural promptings of my own feelings on this occasion, 
I should certainly keep silence. There are thoughts 
and emotions in my own bosom at this time, as there 
must be in the bosoms of many who are present, that 
can find no utterance in words, — that shrink from 
expression, and refuse to come forth from the sacred 
recesses of the heart. You will therefore readily 
believe me when I say, that nothing would have in- 
duced me to occupy my present position, and to open 
my lips in the language of address, but the request 
of those who had a right to expect that their request 
should be regarded, and the desire to show to him, 
whose departure we mourn, the last token of reverence 
and honour on this side the grave. I felt that I could 
not decline the duty to which I was summoned, since 
I was not only bound, in common with all who knew 
him, to yield him my esteem and reverence; but had 
ever been conscious that my partial association with 
him in labour, was the highest honour of which I 
could boast, — an honour of which I freely confess 
myself unworthy; while the relations of intimate 
friendship into which he had received me, had formed 
a happiness, the greatness of which is now measured 
too well by the sorrow attending its loss. But I do 
not come forward to sketch his character or to pro- 
nounce his eulogy: this hour of vivid sorrow, — this 
solemn pause, preceding our conveyance of his re- 
mains to the tomb, is not the time for such a task. 
I would only seek, as your fellow-mourner, to guide 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 5 

your thoughts to those topics of meditation which 
should engage the mind of a Christian in connexion 
with such a solemnity. By directing the mind to 
these, we may prevent it from being distracted by 
contending currents of emotion, and may take advan- 
tage of the tide of sorrow to bear it onwards with 
greater force to the apprehension and contact of un- 
seen realities. 

We appear here as mourners, and we have cause 
for mourning. Our sorrow should flow in sympathy 
with the irreparable bereavement sustained by the 
honoured widow and family of God's servant; whose 
feelings this day who can conceive? Theirs was 
once a happiness accorded to few, of beholding 
in their domestic circle the rarest exhibition of 
Christian graces and attractions, crowning the emi- 
nence of intellect — of all that could charm and 
satisfy the heart, and instruct and elevate the mind. 
With their joy a stranger might not intermeddle; 
and now their heart knoweth its own bitterness. 
May the supplications we have offered on their 
behalf be heard! May He who alone can fully esti- 
mate their loss, be their gracious and sympathizing 
comforter ! But our mourning is not that of sym- 
pathy only. We are conscious this day of a personal 
loss. The loss we have sustained is vast, and varied 
in its relations, even as the services and excellencies 
were varied, of him who has been taken away. That 
he, who was the Pastor of this church for half a cen- 
tury, and who gathered around him in this place so 
many delighted hearers, eager to catch from his lips 
the pure stream of the truths of the Grospel; who 



6 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 

occupied the Theologic chair with such distinction, 
training a long succession of faithful men for the 
ministry; who by his writings, and by the influence 
of his spirit and personal character, filled so large a 
space in the attention and profound regard of the 
Christian community throughout the world; that he 
should be — gone, how great the blank! how chilling 
the sense of bereavement it produces! It is true 
that we possessed him long, — that we received from 
him the largest amount of service we could ask for, 
— that we could not expect to retain him much 
longer, or wish to delay the reward of his toils; but 
the heart will not own such arguments. All these 
things but gave him a stronger hold on our affections ; 
and make it the more difficult for us to apprehend 
the reality of our loss. We can hardly believe it to 
be true that we have seen him — that we have heard 
him, for the last time; that his manly form, with its 
movements of graceful dignity, will never be seen 
ascending this place of instruction again ; that those 
sweet persuasive tones, so familiar to our ears, shall 
charm them no more; that our hearts shall not glow 
in accompanying his accents of devotion, or thrill be- 
neath the power of his arguments and appeals. The 
sorrow which these reflections bring with them is a 
natural and a reasonable sorrow : it would argue an 
unworthy misappreciation of the privilege we enjoyed, 
did we not feel it. And they who knew what 
charms his friendship could add to all the claims of 
his acknowledged worth — who knew what tender 
and confiding affection his simple, candid, noble na- 
ture could exhibit; — they have a sorrow of their 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 7 

own — a sorrow proportioned to the greater extent 
and depth of their bereavement. For where shall 
they turn to find a counsellor at once so wise and so 
kind — a helper so considerate and so faithful ? Truly 
we have cause for mourning. We mourn a loss sus- 
tained by the entire household of faith, — a loss to 
that section of the Church whose main pillar and 
ornament he was, — a loss to our country, — a loss to 
this city and its best institutions, — an afflictive loss 
to this church and congregation, — and such a loss as 
can never be repaired to the friends he cherished and 
the family he loved! 

Our mourning then is reasonable and well-grounded, 
and, by the highest principles we profess, it is not 
only permitted — it is sanctioned and hallowed. When 
we put on the Christian, we do not put off the man. 
The elements and laws of our nature are not abol- 
ished, but purified, regulated, and dignified by our 
faith. For He who came from heaven to save us, 
came not in strange and awful guise, owning no 
community with the weakness of our being — himself 
pure spirit, and condemning and abrogating in his 
followers whatever had connexion with a frail and 
perishable constitution. No ; though he came as " a 
quickening spirit/' to vivify and transform our pro- 
strate humanity — it was as a spirit robed in flesh: — 
He not only embraced this humanity of ours, ap- 
proaching it from without with the caresses of his 
love, but He entered into it as His Tabernacle and 
place of abode, and sojourned in it as a home while 
He dwelt among us. Nor did He simply endure 
with calm impassiveness, the storms of sorrow that 



8 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 

might shake that Tabernacle, folding around Him its 
majestic curtains to forbid their entrance ; but He 
opened its recesses to their power, and bent beneath 
their violence. He permitted grief to plough its 
furrows on his brow — and tears to wear their chan- 
nels on his cheek — and the groans of anguish to heave 
and rend his breast. Nor y when in these things he 
was most the Son of Man, was he less the Son of 
God. The brightness and the power of his Divinity, 
shone through and transfigured the very weakness 
and sufferings of his humanity. Weakness and sor- 
row, — tears and groans, — became endowed with a 
sacred dignity, and impregnated with a heavenly 
power through their association with His Spirit. As 
the sun will tinge the clouds that gather round him 
with attractive splendour, or flashing upon the morn- 
ing mists, dissolve them into dew; so He who is the 
Sun of Righteousness — the Life which is the light of 
men, has given to sorrow a new character of beauty ; 
has made it an appropriate and seemly garb for his 
people; and assigned to suffering a gracious influ- 
ence to open and subdue the heart to the reception 
of truth and grace. Are we then sensible of an 
overwhelming loss, so great that as yet we cannot 
comprehend it ? It is God who is calling us to mourn, 
that we may become more truly and consistently the 
followers of Him who was " a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief." He calls us to mourn in 
our church relations, and because of the rupture of 
those ties that had their origin and strength in the 
spiritual life of His own family. 

Such bereavements and sorrows form a most impor- 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 9 

tant part of the discipline by which the church of 
Christ is to be trained and perfected. They bring us 
most nearly into connexion with our Head. Not 
without such experience can our minds be wrought 
into conformity with our Lord's. Though He was in 
pre-eminent dignity the Son of God, yet he stooped 
to learn obedience by the things he suffered : not that 
our learning the lesson might be superseded, but that 
it might be facilitated and confirmed. To suffer, to 
weep, to feel that we are solitary, in the absence from 
our midst of one whom we loved and revered ; all 
these things, bitter and humiliating in themselves, are 
now become parts of a blessed process that is to edu- 
cate us to maturity — to produce in us a resemblance to 
the Lord of glory. We do not then shrink from the 
position we have to occupy to-day. As we stand be- 
side the grave that shall hide from us the beloved re- 
mains of our pastor and friend, let us think of Him 
who linked himself by ties of friendship to a dying 
man, that he might learn the pang that attends their 
rupture ; and that he might fully know it, would not 
avert the mortal termination of sickness. See Him 
as he comes at length weeping, and asks, Where have 
ye laid him ? Groaning in himself, he is conducted 
to the place. w It was a cave, and a stone lay upon 
it." Simple words, but how sad and full their sig- 
nificance ! A cave, and a stone lay upon it. The 
description is sufficient : we know the abode. It is 
the house appointed for all living. It is the long 
home, to which many of us have consigned the ob- 
jects of our dearest affections. It is thither we our- 
selves are journeying. But ere we are called to en- 



10 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 

ter it, with what longing and tearful eyes do we sur- 
vey the stone that lies upon it. Beyond — beneath 
that stone, what treasures of the heart lie buried! 
what treasures has it yet to cover ! And who stands 
before it, clothed in poverty, a lowly, weak and 
weeping man, groaning in himself ? Hear Him as he 
speaks, in the midst of his tears and groans, from be- 
fore that silent and close-barred sepulchre — speaks to 
his mourning people through all succeeding time: — 
" I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
Friends and fellow-mourners, if Christ has thus en- 
tered into our griefs, that he might become fully united 
to his people ; let us, by means of our bereavements, — 
by the gracious and filial endurance of them, enter into 
his experience, that we may know the power of his 
life and resurrection. 

Yes, it is at the very threshold of the grave, as we 
stand weeping there and think of all that we have 
lost, that we find ourselves in closest proximity, and 
should be able most fully to realize our union, with 
our glorious Redeemer. For this is the spot which 
he chose as the arena of his conflict — this is the 
scene of his consummated triumph — here he has 
planted the trophies and standard of victory. The 
titles of honour and renown which he claims for him- 
self — what are they but these? — " that through death 
he has destroyed him that had the power of death, 
that is, the devil ; and delivered them who through fear 
of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage," 
— that " he hath abolished death, and hath brought 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 11 

life and immortality to light through the gospel." 
Hear the proclamations of this Regal Conqueror, ex- 
ulting in the recovery of the spoil — " I will ransom 
them from the power of the grave: I will redeem 
them from death : O death, I will be thy plagues ; O 
grave, I will be thy destruction! repentance shall be 
hid from mine eyes." From the upper sanctuary, 
from amidst the seven golden candlesticks, he speaks, 
saying: " Fear not; I am the first and the last; I am 
he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive 
for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of the unseen 
world and of death/' Surrounded by these hopes — 
penetrated by these quickening and consoling truths, 
we feel that we are in the region of life; the bitter 
root of our sorrow bears a blossom of unfading joy : 
the cloud of death which has rapt away our honoured 
friend, is seen to be dark only with the shadows of 
earth thrown upon it — its farther side is illumined 
by the light of immortality. We weep not for him 
— with him all weeping is ended. The glories and 
delights of which we have heard him speak, in earnest 
anticipation of them — on this very spot; he knows 
them now in rapturous experience that shall never 
end. " The wonders of another world " — " The 
glories of the Lamb amidst the throne" — to which 
he referred in broken exclamations amidst the 
sufferings of his dying hours: he sees them all — the 
sources of his ineffable bliss — the object of his ecstatic 
adoration ! My Brethren, you who shared his in- 
structions with me — did we love to look upon him, 
to listen to him, to cling to his side? Let us follow 
him thither! Let us seek to join with him there in 



12 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 

ascribing all blessing and honour to the Lamb that 
was slain! 

Might I address one word to my brethren in the 
ministry, — and to my younger brethren, who are 
this day mourning the loss of an invaluable in- 
structor and guide? Surely to those of us who are 
connected with that sacred work, this event has a voice 
of peculiar solemnity. We have now witnessed in 
the case of a most eminent servant of God, the close 
of his race — such a race as is seldom run ; the end of a 
good fight — the completion of a long life's labour and 
testimony for Christ. We have no regrets to utter 
for services unfinished — for purposes prematurely 
broken off — for rich promises but partially fulfilled: 
— he perfected the circle of his endeavours, including 
within it all the objects and fruits of usefulness that 
met the wants and demands of his time. Emphati- 
cally may we say of him, that " he served his gener- 
ation by the will of God/' working while it was day; 
yea, as long as the last lingering streak of light illu- 
mined his evening sky. What an example has he 
left us of patient, faithful, indefatigable exertion! of 
courageous and self-denying resolution, tempered with 
wisdom and meekness ! Some of you delighted to fight 
in the ranks by his side: all of you must have 
honoured him as a noble fellow-combatant in the 
contest of truth and right, with error and evil. He 
has left the field for the throne ; he has laid aside the 
sword and shield for the crown and the palm. Surely 
the very removal — the empty place — of him, with 
whose form in the foremost rank we were so familiar, 
should speak to us who are left with unwonted power. 



BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 13 

When we feel the shock of such a bereavement, it 
should be like an electric influence from another sphere, 
from the vast Infinite which we see not, but which 
has innumerable lines of sympathetic communication 
with our spirits. The hand of God has but to touch 
these, and our inmost souls quiver and thrill. Is not 
his hand touching them now, causing us to start and 
look up from our lethargic dreaming, that we may- 
be conscious where we stand — what we are doing — 
what it is we are hastening to. We stand on the 
field of conflict between the hosts of light and 
the powers of darkness, we have arrayed ourselves 
on the side of the Lord against the mighty ; the issues 
at stake are our own salvation and the salvation of all 
to whom we may minister, issues that stretch into 
eternity, immeasurable, overwhelming! The decision 
is at hand — the Judge standeth at the door. We 
shall soon behold those eyes which are as a flame of 
fire: we shall soon have to give account of our 
stewardship. Shall we then hear him say — " Well 
done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of 
thy Lord?" — Let this event rouse us to renewed 
earnestness, vigilance and fidelity. God and his 
cause have need of all our powers : the Kedeemer is 
worthy of them all. Let us have our loins girt about 
and our lamps burning, and be as servants waiting 
for their master. " Blessed is that servant whom his 
Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a 
truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over 
all that he hath/' These are the words of the Master 
— of Him who is the truth and the life, and who hath 
said, " Surely I come quickly." May we be enabled 



14 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 

to reply without misgivings — " Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus." 

[The last three verses of Ps. xvi. were then sung, 
and the Kev. Dr. Bobson, of Wellington St. United 
Presbyterian Church, concluded with prayer.] 



THE 

AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 

BY JOHN BROWN, D.D. 



THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS IK 
THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 

II. PETEE i. 12—21. 

" Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remem- 
brance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in 
the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this 
tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance ; knowing 
that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle,, even as our Lord 
Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye 
may be able after my decease to have these things always in remem- 
brance. For we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when 
we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from 
God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to 
him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, 
when we were with him in the holy mount. "We have also a more 
sure word of prophecy : whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as 
unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and 
the day-star arise in your hearts : knowing this first, that no pro- 
phecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the pro- 
phecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of 
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

There is a peculiar interest attached to the dying 
thoughts and last sayings of wise and good men. 
That interest belongs in a high degree to the para- 
graph now read. The apostle, when he wrote these 

B 



18 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

words, was "now such an one as Peter the aged." 
Calling to mind the words of his Lord, in which he 
had signified to him " by what death he should glo- 
rify God," — " when thou wast young thou girdedst 
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but 
when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch out thy 
hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee 
whither thou wouldest not;" — and, anticipating the 
speedy accomplishment of the oracular prediction — 
" Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt fol- 
low me afterward," with the cross full in his view 
and near at hand, he in spirit goes forth to take it 
up, that he may "bear it after Jesus;" saying in 
effect with his beloved brother Paul, when waiting in 
prison in daily expectation of the stroke of the heads- 
man's sword, " I am now ready to be offered, and the 
time of my departure is at hand." It is striking to 
notice with what unruffled tranquillity, not unmixed 
with the " desire to depart," the two Apostles look 
forward to martyrdom, and how similar are their 
employments in the immediate prospect of it: Paul 
urging his beloved son, Timothy, to " endure afflic- 
tions, do the work of an evangelist, and give full 
proof of his ministry;" and Peter, stirring up "the 
pure minds" of the brethren "by way of remem- 
brance," that even " after his decease, they might 
be able" to be " mindful of the holy commandment 
delivered unto them by the apostles of the Lord and 
Saviour." 

The paragraph presents us with two great topics 
for consideration, — the Apostle's resolutions, and 
the grounds on which these resolutions are based. 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 19 

The consideration of these resolutions of an aged 
minister of Christ in the prospect of near approach- 
ing death, will not be an inappropriate employment 
in our present circumstances, especially as we have 
such abundant evidence that they were the resolu- 
tions formed and executed, by that revered aged 
minister of Christ whose departure into the world 
of spirits, though not untimely, has excited a senti- 
ment of such deep regret not only in this congrega- 
tion, but throughout the churches in our own and 
in other lands. 

The Apostle's PvESOLtjtioxs are two. First, to be 
" always, so long as he was in this tabernacle, stir- 
ring them up, by putting them in remembrance" of 
the truths stated in the previous context ; and 
secondly, to " endeavour that after his decease they 
might still be able to have these things always in 
their remembrance." 

The grounds on which these resolutions rest are 
three: First, a deep sense of the truth and import- 
ance of the statements he had just made in the pre- 
ceding paragraph, indicated in the word "wherefore." 
Secondly, a knowledge founded on an intimation 
made to him by his Lord, that his death was near at 
hand — "knowing that shortly I must put off this 
my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath 
showed me ; " and, Thirdly, a firm conviction, grounded 
on miracle and prophecy, that in teaching the doc- 
trine of Christ he and his brethren had only declared 
divinely-revealed truth — " We have not followed 
cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to 
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 



20 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he re- 
ceived from God the Father honour and glory, when 
there came such a voice from the excellent glory, 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 
And this voice which came from heaven we heard, 
when we were with him in the holy mount. We 
have also a more sure word of prophecy," or rather 
we have the prophetic word more confirmed, " where- 
unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light 
shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the 
day-star arise in your hearts : knojving this first, that 
no prophecy of the Scripture is of private inter- 
pretation. For the prophecy came not in old time 
(or as it is in the margin — at any time) by the will 
of man; but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." As the Apostle's sense 
of the truth and importance of the statements made 
in the preceding context, and his knowledge that 
his death was near at hand, owe all their aptitude 
as grounds of his resolutions to keep them in re- 
membrance of those things while he lived, and to 
make provision for their not being forgotten after 
his death, to his conviction that in teaching the 
doctrine of Christ he was only declaring divinely- 
revealed truth — there is an obvious propriety in 
giving the first place in the illustration of these 
grounds to that which is last mentioned by the Apos- 
tle. Such is the outline I wish to fill up in the 
sequel of the discourse, and this sketch, rude as it is, 
may be of use in guiding my thoughts and assisting 
your apprehension and memory. 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 21 

Let us then, in the first place, briefly attend to 
the Apostle's resolutions. 

And first, he resolves to stir up, so long as he 
lived, those to whom he was writing, by putting 
them in remembrance of the statements made in the 
preceding context, — " I will not be negligent to put 
you always in remembrance of these things, though 
ye know them, and be established in the present 
truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this 
tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remem- 
brance."" 

In looking at this resolution our attention is natu- 
rally turned, first, to what the Apostle resolves to do, 
" to put them in remembrance " of the things he had 
stated, which he calls " the present truth," " though 
they knew them and were established in them;" then 
to the object for which he meant to do this, " to stir 
them up ; " then to the manner in which he was de- 
termined to do it,— not perfunctorily, but diligently, 
" I will not be negligent," — not occasionally, but 
habitually, " always, 5 ' — not for a limited time, but 
during life, " as long as I am in this tabernacle ; " 
and finally, to the felt propriety of his forming and 
executing such a resolution, " I think it meet." A 
few words on each of these will suffice for the illus- 
tration of this part of the subject. 

As to what the Apostle resolves to do, it is, as he 
says, " to put them in remembrance of these things." 
The expression, " these things," plainly refers to the 
things spoken of in the preceding paragraph, the 
things respecting their peculiar character and condi- 
tion as Christians; persons " who had obtained like 



22 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

precious faith with the apostles, in the righteousness 
of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (v. 1.); per- 
sons " who had received grace and peace through the 
knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord;" 
and who needed to have this grace and peace " mul- 
tiplied" to them (v. 2.) ; persons who had been " call- 
ed" (v. 3.), "and elected" (v. 10.) by God; respect- 
ing their duty, to " make their calling and election 
sure" (v. 10.) ; respecting the manner in which this 
was to be done, by " adding to faith, virtue, and 
knowledge, and temperance, and patience, and god- 
liness, and brotherly-kindness, and charity" (v. 5 — 
7.) ; and respecting the varied and powerful motives 
which urge them to the discharge of this duty in this 
way ; the abundant provision which had been made 
for this purpose (v. 3, 4.), the unhappy consequences 
which would result from neglecting this duty, and 
the happy consequences which would result from per- 
forming it (ver. 7 — 11.). 

The statements made on these subjects are termed 
" the present truth." It has been common to sup- 
pose that the force of this phrase is, ' that truth which 
owing to peculiar circumstances is at the present time 
specially interesting and important,' and that the 
apostle refers to the doctrine ' that final salvation is 
to be sought by, and expected in, a constant continu- 
ance in well-doing,' a doctrine which, important at all 
times, had a superadded importance imparted to it at 
this time, from the antinomian dogmas and practices 
which the false teachers, so graphically described in 
the second chapter, had extensively introduced. It 
does not seem possible to bring this sense out of the 



IX THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 23 

original expression, which just means ' the truth which 
is present with you/ being nearly equivalent with the 
apostle Paul's phrase, " the gospel, which I have 
preached unto you, which also ye have received, and 
wherein ye stand." 

The persons to whom the Apostle wrote knew 
these truths, and they were established in them. 
They had been taught them, and they had, on what 
appeared to them satisfactory evidence, believed 
them, and continued to believe them. They " stood 
in the true grace of God," which they had received 
not in vain. But they needed to be cautioned, " lest 
any of them," like so many others, " being led away 
with the error of the wicked, should fall from their 
steadfastness : " for men may forget what they now 
know, they may be brought to doubt what they now 
believe, the truth and its evidence may slip out of 
mind, and then they are, as to influence, as if they 
did not exist. The anxieties, the labours, the plea- 
sures, the afflictions of the world, are in danger of 
drawing the mind from the truth. What is not 
thought of cannot influence, and is in danger of be- 
ing forgotten. Evidence needs to be often reviewed 
to secure permanent power over the mind; and in 
consequence of neglecting such a review, and allowing 
objections to enter into the mind and remain there 
unchallenged, what once was felt as absolutely cer- 
tain begins to be thought of as doubtful, and ere 
long appears as if it were but a hallucination or a 
dream. The apostle was aware of all this, and hence 
he resolved to keep those to whom he was writing 
in mind of the truth and its evidence, on subjects 



24 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

so closely connected with their most important duties 
and highest interests. He was convinced with his 
brother Paul, who, though persuaded that the Koman 
Christians were " full of goodness, filled with all 
knowledge, able also to admonish one another," writes 
boldly to them, to " put them in mind" that the gospel, 
to exert its saving efficiency, must be kept in memory. 
" Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, 
line upon line, line upon line ;" where this is neglected, 
men who have had the gospel very plainly taught them, 
may after a season, which, had it been well improved, 
might have fitted them to be "teachers of others, 
need some one to teach them again what be the first 
principles of the oracles of God." 

Ministers of the gospel should imitate the Apostle. 
They are not to deal in constant reiteration of the 
same things ; they do not need to do so, for the topics 
necessary to the right discharge of their functions as 
teachers are very numerous and varied. They have a 
wide field to expatiate in — they have inexhaustible 
stores out of which they may bring things new as well 
as old ; but they are not to seek to gratify the love of 
novelty either in themselves or in their hearers, at the 
hazard of incurring the disapprobation of their Mas- 
ter, or endangering the souls of their people. It is a 
weighty observation of the honest and judicious Scott 
— " The frequent discussion of practical subjects does 
not prove acceptable to the majority in some congre- 
gations where the doctrines of grace are preached : so 
that ministers will often be tempted to omit them, or 
to hurry them over in a general and superficial manner, 
which exceedingly tends to deceive souls and to dif- 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 2D 

fuse a false and loose religion." Woe to the minis- 
ter who falls before such a temptation. Yours never 
did. For Christian ministers to speak the same things 
in reference to the doctrine and law of Christ, to 
them ought not to be grievous, for, for their hearers 
it is not only safe but necessary. Wherever any thing 
is to be thoroughly learned and permanently remem- 
bered, there must be much repetition. 

The object which the Apostle had in view in thus 
putting those to whom he wrote in remembrance 
was, that they might be stirred up. "I think it 
meet thus to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
brance." " I stir up your pure minds by way of 
remembrance." Action is the end of knowledge. 
To know truth is in order to do duty. The Apostle's 
object in stating and restating divine truth was not to 
make men ingenious speculators and dexterous con- 
troversialists. It was to make them active in doing, 
patient in suffering, the will of Grod — good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ — to waken them out of the dreams into 
which the stupifying influence of that most potent 
of all enchantresses, " the present evil world," is apt 
to make men indulge — to banish the languor of sloth 
— to prevent them from becoming weary in well-doing 
— to make them " give all diligence" towards the dis- 
charge of all duty — to make them " abound in the 
work of the Lord," " forgetting the things which are 
behind, reaching forth towards those that are before, 
pressing towards the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Such was the 
object of the Apostle in his resolution to put those to 
whom he wrote in mind of the great principles of 



26 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

Christian truth. It was to stir up every principle of 
action, gratitude, and regard to interest, hope and 
fear into active vigorous exercise, that the great end 
might not be lost, the abundant entrance into the 
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. 

As to the manner in which the Apostle was deter- 
mined to put them in remembrance that he might 
thereby stir them up, it was to be, first, not perfunc- 
torily, but diligently, and with all his heart: " I will 
not be negligent," i. e. not merely, I will not neglect 
to do it, but I will not be negligent in doing it. He 
was determined to seize every opportunity for this 
purpose. He was resolved to exemplify Paul's ex- 
hortation to Timothy as to the right way of preach- 
ing the word, " be instant in season and out of sea- 
son/' to press it on men's attention whether they 
were willing or unwilling to listen — " whether they 
would hear or whether they would forbear" — i. e. re- 
fuse to hear. The duties of the Christian ministry 
must be performed, and energetically performed. The 
minister must throw his whole soul and heart into 
them. If he would have his hearers " give diligence," 
" give all diligence" to do their duty, he must not be 
negligent in doing his. He is not likely to stir up 
men who seems in danger himself of falling asleep. 

Peter had too strong a sense of the authority of 
his Master, and too deep a sympathy with the haz- 
ards and miseries of immortal men, to be negligent in 
the discharge of his duties. And as he was deter- 
mined to perform them not perfunctorily but dili- 
gently, so was he to perform them, not only occa- 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 27 

sionally, but habitually, constantly: " I will put you 
always in remembrance " — I will not only now and 
then call your attention to these things, but they 
shall be the staple article of my teaching. What is 
essential to the salvation of the sinner and the edifi- 
cation of the saint, should be the ordinary theme of 
the Christian minister. There is something very 
far wrong in a Christian teacher's estimate of his du- 
ties and responsibilities, if he can be heard even for a 
very few Sabbaths in succession, without our being put 
in mind of the great elementary principles of Chris- 
tian faith and duty, by which both saints and sinners 
are most likely to be stirred up, the things whereby 
men live and in which is the life of our souls. Of 
such a deficiency those who had the privilege of en- 
joying the ministry now so honourably finished, 
never had reason to complain. 

Still further, the Apostle determines to execute the 
resolution to stir up men's minds by putting them in 
remembrance, not only diligently and habitually, but 
perseveringly, — " As long as I am in this tabernacle 
I will stir you up by putting you in remembrance." 
" So long as I am in this tabernacle/' is a beautiful 
figurative expression for ' so long as I continue to live 
in this frail mortal body.' " Our earthly house of 
this tabernacle," is by the Apostle Paul contrasted 
with the resurrection body — " the building of God, a 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
The expression before us is just equivalent to ' So long 
as I live I will stir you up by putting you in remem- 
brance.' Peter had not long to live, and he knew 
this. He was old and feeble. But whatever strength 



28 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

he had, whether of body or of mind, he was disposed 
to devote it to the service of God and his church. 
His jubilee, had he arrived at it, would not have found 
him, as it did not find your minister, desirous of eman- 
cipation from his Master's service. He had nailed his 
ear to his door-post, and wished to be his servant for 
ever. His desire was that the executioner might find 
him engaged in putting the brethren in remembrance 
of the law of the Lord. It is not for us to choose for 
ourselves, yet I believe the true-hearted minister of 
Christ cannot help wishing that he may be allowed to 
die at his post, that as the excellent Flavel has it, 
" Our life and our labour may end together." So 
long as he has a voice, he would wish it employed in 
warning sinners, and in stimulating, directing, com- 
forting, saints. " Were I but able for it," said a dying 
minister of Christ, "I would willingly work as a 
common labourer six days of the week to be allowed 
to preach Christ on the seventh/' Every Christian 
minister who at all deserves the name cordially sym- 
pathises in the sentiment still more strikingly express- 
ed by our great Apostle : " To me who am less than 
the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should 
preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
Christ." What a privilege to be allowed to commend 
Christ's excellences on earth down to the very period 
when we shall be allowed to commence our eternal 
celebration of them in heaven ! 

There is yet another thought expressed in the 
Apostle's statement of his first resolution, and that is, 
his sense of the propriety of his forming such a 
resolution — " I think it meet to stir you up by put- 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 29 

ting you in remembrance." Meet for you, — meet for 
me. Meet for you — for you need, very much need, 
to be stirred up by being put in remembrance. You 
are in great danger of letting slip the things you 
have heard — of becoming weary and faint in your 
minds. Meet for me, — for " should not the shepherd 
feed the flock?" should not the steward superintend 
the household, and "give every one his portion of 
suitable food in due season?" Meet especially for me, 
to whom the Lord said again and again, " Feed my 
sheep — Feed my lambs," " putting you in mind be- 
cause of the grace," the high favour of apostleship, 
" that is given me of God." Meet for me so long as 
I am in this tabernacle, for what is the use of life to 
me who am His but to serve Him. He is the Lord, 
my Lord. I am his servant, and yours for his sake. 
In honouring him, in edifying you, I wish to live and 
to die. So much for the illustration of the Apostle's 
first resolution. 

His second resolution is that he should endeavour 
that they " might be able after his decease to have 
these things in remembrance." It is a great comfort 
to an old Christian minister anticipating near ap- 
proaching dissolution, that his death is to make little 
or no difference to the cause of Christ. The under- 
shepherds are "not suffered to continue by reason of 
death," but " the Chief Shepherd," though he once 
too was dead, blessed be God, " dieth no more." 
Death can never again have dominion over Him. 
" All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the 
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower 
thereof falleth away ; but the word of the Lord en- 



30 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

dureth for ever." The residue of the Spirit is with 
Him, to whom the Father hath given the Holy Ghost 
not by measure. The God of Elijah can endow 
Elisha with a sevenfold measure, if he so wills it, of his 
Master's gifts — and Solomon may accomplish what 
David felt it high honour, true happiness, to have 
been permitted and enabled to make preparation for. 

"Though mortal shepherds dwell in dust, 

The aged and the young ; 
The watchful eye in darkness clos'd, 

And mute the instructive tongue : 
The Eternal Shepherd still survives, 

New comfort to impart ; 
His eye still guides us, and his voice 

Still animates our heart." 

So I doubt not thought and felt Peter when within a 
short way of his bloody grave and his heavenly rest. 
" Behold I die, but God will be with you." " Jesns 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever/' Yet 
love to his Master and the church whom he purchased 
with his own blood, a desire to honour Him and 
edify them, makes him wish to speak even from the 
tomb and from the skies. 

It is a wonderful thing that by means of certain 
arbitrary characters impressed on suitable materials, 
the thoughts and feelings of men may be embalmed, 
not dead, but alive — and for age after age to the 
end of time, if there was originally enough of life in 
them, continue to instruct and delight the successive 
generations of men. Peter's spirit, not uninfluenced 
by the Holy Spirit, determined, by the use of this won- 
drous art, that the Christian brethren whom he loved 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 3i 

should " be able after his decease to have these things 
always in their remembrance;" and in his two golden 
epistles he has for eighteen centuries been uttering 
his "testimony and his exhortation" (1st Ep. v. 12.) 
to the churches of the saints. Who can compute the 
amount of heavenly light and influence which during 
these centuries have streamed forth from these holy 
letters into the minds and hearts of the saints ! As 
the dead whom Samson slew at his death were more 
than those he slew in his life, so the number that 
Peter has converted and edified since he left the 
earth is incomparably greater than the seals of his 
apostolic ministry on earth, though he did what no 
man probably has ever done since — numbered three 
thousand converts on a single day by a single sermon. 
And who can tell how Peter's happiness in heaven is 
still to be increased by the knowledge of how his holy 
resolution is continuing to serve its object in promot- 
ing the edification and comfort of a world full of 
Christians during the lightsome ages of millennial 
glory? 

Nor is the desire expressed in the Apostle's reso- 
lution peculiar to him. It originates in principles 
which lie deep in the bosom of every right-hearted 
Christian minister — of every right-hearted Christian 
man. It has been justly remarked that, "when a 
Christian grows old and draws near to death, his 
sense of the value of divine truth by no means di- 
minishes."* As he approaches the eternal world, 
and from its borders surveys the past and looks on to 

* Barnes. 



32 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

what is to come, when he remembers the benefits which 
the truths of religion have conferred on him in life, 
and feels the good hope through grace with which 
they inspire him as he stands on the brink of the 
grave — -in the neighbourhood of the judgment-seat 
— and thinks what the gospel universally known 
and believed would do, in transforming earth into 
paradise, and in making its inhabitants fit to be par- 
takers of the inheritance of the saints in light, the 
desire that the light of that truth may soon become 
universal, like the light of the sun, swells into a 
passion which finds its vent in David's last words, 
" Let the whole earth be filled with his glory." 
And this desire naturally enough expresses itself in 
more than words. He will, with the Apostle, " en- 
deavour that after his decease, men may have in re- 
membrance " those words of truth and grace which 
were to him " spirit and life." He will do what he 
can that his children and children's children, to the 
latest generation, may know them, and love them, 
and live by them. He will by the .communication 
of his substance contribute to the support of mis- 
sionaries and the circulation of Bibles. He may not 
be able to write books, but by contributing to asso- 
ciations for the publication and distribution of the 
best books he may be extensively and permanently 
useful. 

" Every man," to borrow the language of a living 
writer, " Every man who can write a good book owes 
it to the church and to the world to do it." If it be a 
very good book the world will not willingly let it die, 
and it may not perish but in the funeral pile of the 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 33 

earth ; and even though like many good books it should 
perish, during its life it may wipe away many a tear, 
relieve many a doubt, soothe many a sorrow, save 
souls from death, and hide multitudes of sins. 
Ministers of Christ especially should be animated 
with Peter's spirit. They should, as a matter of duty, 
from an early period of their ministry begin to lay up 
what may be a valuable and availing treasure to 
their congregation, to the church, and to the world, 
when they put off this their tabernacle, seeking to 
polish and purify it to the uttermost. This would 
have a good influence on their own minds. It would 
add to the edification of their people even now : and 
the number of really good books, by no means too 
great, would be increased. 

It is not an unworthy ambition to seek to share, 
though in far more limited measure, in the holy delight 
which, in the knowledge that in heaven they are still on 
earth honouring God in conducing to the salvation of 
men, must refresh such spirits of just men made perfect, 
as wore on earth the ever-to-be-honoured names of 
Owen, and Baxter, and Howe, and Bunyan, and 
Henry, and Doddridge, and Watts, and Erskine, 
and Edwards, and Newton, and Fuller, and 
Wardlaw, whose usefulness is likely to grow with 
the ever extending range of the English language till 
the end of time. Who can tell of how much good a 
little tract like that of M'Laurin " On glorying in 
the cross of Christ," instinct with the living fire of 
genius, taught by Christianity, has been, may yet be, 
productive. Ay, who can estimate the benefit which 
the nameless author of that incomparable narrative of 
c 



34 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

Poor Joseph has conferred and will yet confer on 
mankind. " This little Epistle of Peter/' as Barnes 
well says, "has shed light on the path of men for 
eighteen centuries, and will continue to do so until 
the second coming of the Saviour. It goes to soften 
the pang of separation between a Christian pastor and 
his flock — (I believe your pastor felt this, and so do 
you now amid your deep sorrow), — when he knows that 
after his decease they will be able to remember the 
things which he has taught them — and when they 
know that even when dead he will continue to speak 
to them, the pages strangely as they peruse them re- 
flecting a countenance and form hid in the grave, and 
echoing back a voice which they must hear no more 
for ever." 

So much for the illustration of the apostle's twofold 
resolution — that he would not be negligent to stir 
them up by putting them always in remembrance 
of the great principles of Christian truth and law, 
so long as he was in this tabernacle ; and that he 
would endeavour that they might be able after his 
decease to have these things always in remembrance. 

I should now proceed to consider the grounds on 
which the Apostle rests these resolutions. These are, 
as you are aware, three: His deep-felt sense of the 
truth and importance of those things which he had 
stated, and which he was determined to keep them in 
mind of as long as he lived, and not to let them for- 
get after his death; — his knowledge received by 
communication from his Master that his death was at 
hand; — and his firm conviction, from the evidence of 
miracles and prophecy, that in preaching the gospel 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 35 

of Jesus Christ he and his apostolic brethren were not 
following cunningly devised fables, but were declaring 
divinely revealed truth. — The solidity of the first two 
grounds obviously depends on the solidity of the 
third. For if the Apostle and his brethren had followed 
cunningly devised fables, no depth of conviction of the 
truth of what was indeed false, of the importance of 
what in that case was vain and empty as a dream, — no 
supj)osed knowledge of near approaching death, which 
in that case must be delusion, could be a good ground 
for the two resolutions which he announces. The 
third ground comes then for these reasons to be first 
considered. — I have not time to unfold the meaning 
of the verses in which this ground is stated. Indeed 
these verses contain in them one or two phrases which 
have occasioned perhaps as much discussion and con- 
troversy as any equal number of phrases in the sacred 
volume. Even to point out their difficulty would be 
singularly discordant with your state of feeling. Let 
it suffice to remark that this seems to me the general 
train of the Apostle's thoughts : — ' We know the gospel 
revelation respecting Jesus Christ as a divine mes- 
senger and the promised Messiah, Him who should 
come, to be the very truth most sure — for we have 
seen miracles — and we have also witnessed the pro- 
phetic word concerning the Messiah confirmed by 
accomplishment, to which prophetic word, fulfilled 
and unfulfilled, it is wise in Christians to pay careful 
attention as to a heaven-kindled light in this dark 
world, till they reach the world of perfect light; 
and they ought thus highly to regard, thus humbly 
to follow, these prophetic scriptures — for what they 



36 THE AGED MINISTER^ RESOLUTIONS 

contain is not the spontaneous outpouring of the 
writers' own mind. No; none of these prophetic 
oracles are the offspring of human will — they are all 
the expression of the divine mind; for the holy men 
who uttered them, spoke under the inspiring influence 
of the Holy Ghost/ — That is a plain consistent enough 
statement, and forming a very secure ground both 
for the Apostle's resolutions and the other two grounds 
on which in subordination to this he bases them. This 
is so far satisfactory. Whether the Apostle's words will 
bear this interpretation, I must leave you to examine 
for yourselves. 

Meanwhile I conclude with a single reflection, 
which seems naturally enough to rise out of the state- 
ments we have made. How benignant is the spirit 
of genuine Christianity as manifested in the character 
of the Apostle Peter as that is developed in the passage 
we have been illustrating ; how benignant in its 
influence on himself, how benignant in its outgoings 
towards the church, and the world! Peter was now 
an old — it may be a very old man. His life had been 
throughout a laborious one. His trials had been 
many and severe, and he was living every day in the 
expectation of a most painful and ignominious death. 
Yet how tranquil, how happy is he ! How calmly 
does he speak of putting off his tabernacle ! The old 
worn-out Apostle is one of the happiest men out of 
heaven . He would not exchange places with the Roman 
Cesar. Happy in doing his Master's work, — happy 
in the hope of soon entering into his Master's joy, 
though it must be through the agonies of crucifixion. 
The steady look he takes of the cross, most solemn 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 37 

but unblanehing, when he says, " Even as our Lord 
Jesus Christ hath showed me," speaks plainer than 
words, " None of these things move me, neither count I 
my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry which I have 
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of 
the grace of Grod." Past labours and sufferings 
excite no regrets, — death at hand, in its most terrific 
form, no terrors. Who can unfold, who can under- 
stand the benignant power of the principle, which in 
such circumstances can secure calm composure — 
entire satisfaction both in the retrospect and the 
prospect! Christ — known, dwelling in the heart by 
faith, trusted in, loved, enjoyed, was that living 
principle ; and what are the external circumstances of 
destitution and suffering and alarm, amid which that 
principle which made Peter the aged so happy, can- 
not sustain and comfort ! 

And the spirit of Christianity proves its benignity 
not only by its influence on the Apostle's personal 
comfort, but by the dispositions with which it filled 
him in reference to the church and the world. 
How has it counteracted the tendency to that indis- 
position to benevolent exertion, that selfish indifference 
to the happiness of others, which is often the unamiable 
character of old age ! How warm are his affections — 
how ready to expend his waning energies in the 
service of his brethren ! 

Peter is a proper model for aged Christians, and 
especially for aged Christian ministers. We admire, 
we love, the benevolent, strong-hearted, active-minded 
old Apostle. Let us glorify Grod in Him, and ac- 



38 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

knowledge, what he was always ready to acknowledge, 
By the grace of God he was what he was. 

We profess to be of the same religion as the apostle 
Peter. Have we really drunk into its spirit? Is the 
mind, is the heart in us, that was in him? Are we, 
like him, ready in love to serve one another as breth- 
ren? in seeking to stir up one another by putting us 
in remembrance what we are all too apt to forget? 
Have we, like him, a regard not only to the present 
but to coming generations of men and of Christians ? 
Are we desirous of serving our own generation by 
the w r ill of God, and of even, when we have fallen 
on sleep, still exerting a beneficial influence on those 
who are to come after us ? It is only in the degree in 
which we are animated by such dispositions that we 
are Christians. 

If we would be happy useful Christians like Peter, 
we must like Peter seek to have a familiar and in- 
timate acquaintance with our common Lord and 
Master. That was the secret of his satisfied review 
of a life so full of labour — his composed anticipation 
of a death so full of torture and of shame; — He is 
worthy for whom I have suffered, for whom I am to 
suffer, all this. In the exercise of faith in a devotional 
perusal of the Evangelical History we may do much 
to obtain such an acquaintance. Let us in this way 
company with Peter and the other apostles all the 
time that the Lord Jesus went out and in among 
them. Let us follow him from the manger to the 
cross — to the throne. Let us seek to be with him in 
the holy mount contemplating the honour and glory 
he there received from the Father, and listening to 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 39 

the voice from the most excellent glory, u This is my 
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye 
him." Let us go with him to Gethsemane, not to 
sleep, but to watch and weep with him there. Let 
his words, Follow me, never be forgotten by us. Let 
us hear it from the cross — let us hear it from the 
throne. It is because we forget him that we neglect 
our duty and lose our comfort. We cannot be as 
happy, as amiable, as useful as Peter, except by be- 
coming like him thoroughly Christian, 

And oh how happy, how amiable, how useful 
might we be in life, — how calm, resigned, hopeful, 
triumphant in death, — were we but as thoroughly ac- 
quainted with our Lord Jesus as with our means of 
knowing him, in the revelations of his word, in the 
influences of his Spirit, we might be! When we look 
at Christianity as it appears in such men as Peter and 
Paul, and then look inward, who can help saying — 
'If this be Christianity, am I a Christian?' Much 
reason have we to be ashamed; but no reason have 
we to despair. Christ is the same as ever. The 
Holy Spirit is the same as ever. The gospel is 
the same as ever. Human nature is the same as ever. 
Peter and Paul were just renewed men. It was not 
their miraculous gifts, or high office, that made them 
so holy and so happy. And he who created them 
anew in Christ Jesus to good works can create us 
anew in him also. There is no height of Christian 
happiness, holiness, amiableness, usefulness to which it 
is presumption in any of us to aspire ; and if we wish 
to know how these aspirations are likely to be gratified, 
we have but to look at the last verse of the Epistle — 



40 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

" Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and ever. 

Amen." 

Christian brethren of this church, I need not ap- 
ply the preceding illustrations to the peculiar cir- 
cumstances in which you are placed ; I am persuaded 
you have applied them yourselves already, and 
while I have been speaking have been thinking fully 
as much on the aged minister, whom amid so deep 
regrets you lately laid in the grave, as on the aged 
Apostle whose words have been the subject of dis- 
course. It would be strange if it were otherwise. 

Had your venerated and beloved pastor expressed 
his resolutions with regard to you — resolutions ever 
growing in strength as he approached the termination 
of his labours, where, even with all his singular feli- 
city in clothing his beautiful thoughts in fitting 
language, could he have found more appropriate words 
than those of the text ? "I will not be negligent to 
put you always in remembrance of these things, though 
ye know them, and be established in the present 
truth. Yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this 
tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
brance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my 
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed 
me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able 
after my decease to have these things always in re- 
membrance — for we have not followed cunningly de- 
vised fables." 

And did he not carry these resolutions into effect? 
" For the space of more than fifty years he ceased 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 41 

not to teach and warn you, serving the Lord with all 
humility of mind, keeping back nothing that was 
profitable to you, not shunning to declare to you the 
whole counsel of God." Not carelessly, but with 
elaborate preparation and affectionate zeal, — not occa- 
sionally, but habitually, — not fitfully, but persever- 
ingly — down to the very close of his life and ministry, 
with a clear perception and deep feeling of what was 
meet in him from his relations to his Master, to you, 
to the church at large, and to the world, did he 
" stir you up by putting you in remembrance ; ' of 
the doctrine and laws of Christ, and " endeavour 
that after his decease you might have these things 
always in remembrance." And like the Apostle, one of 
his last and best works was his giving to you, and the 
church, and the world — a most complete and satisfac- 
tory exhibition of the evidence that in believing "the 
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," " we 
have not followed cunningly devised fables." 

What a remarkably favoured church have you been 
to have enjoyed, for so long a season, such ministra- 
tions! What a clear, pure, full, faithful, impressive, 
persuasive, dispensation of Christian doctrine and 
law, have you received from his lips! How per- 
spicuously did he state, how powerfully defend the 
truth! More than most men a master of " the words 
of man's wisdom," how simply did he yet unfold to you 
the .oracles of God ! Having " espoused you to one 
husband/' how "jealous over you was he with a 
godly jealousy that he might present you as a chaste 
virgin to Christ !" How did he preach " Christ cruci- 
fied" for you, and " Christ in you the hope of glory 



42 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 

warning every man, and teaching every man, in all 
wisdom, that he might present every man perfect in 
Christ Jesus!" And what a precious legacy has he 
left to the church, and to the world, especially to 
you, in those numerous elaborate treatises on so many 
points relating to the evidence and doctrine, and 
law and institutions of our Lord Jesus, in which he 
has so successfully endeavoured, that ye may be able 
after his decease to have those things which he taught 
you always in remembrance ! — In these, though dead, 
he lives — though silent, he speaks. 

I am persuaded, my brethren, that you highly 
valued his ministrations. You have given too many 
and too substantial proofs of this, to allow it to be 
the subject of reasonable doubt. Yet suffer the word 
of exhortation.— Solemnly inquire if you have im- 
proved under these ministrations in the degree in 
which you ought. He has given in his account — and 
ere long you must give in yours. Carefully use the 
means he has at such an expense of time and thought 
prepared for you that you might be able after his de- 
cease to keep in memory what he taught you. The 
advantages and the responsibilities of the enjoyment 
of his ministry are in an unusual degree permanent. 
" Look to yourselves that he lose not the things which 
he has wrought, but that he " and you together " may 
receive a full reward." 

In these concluding sentences I have intentionally 
confined myself to what seemed naturally to rise out 
of the subject of discourse. I dare not trust myself 
to speak of my personal feelings in reference to your 
deceased pastor, the object of my cordial esteem, love, 



IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 43 

and admiration for more than fifty years. Indeed this 
is not the place for the expression of such feelings ; and 
all that the circumstances call for, in reference to the 
delineation of his public character in all its various 
phases, as a ripe scholar, a learned and judicious 
theologian, a faithful and affectionate pastor, a most 
accomplished preacher, a highly qualified and success- 
ful tutor of students for the Christian ministry, an 
elegant and most useful writer, a fair and most cour- 
teous antagonist, — an active and disinterested philan- 
thropist, and an enlightened public spirited citizen, 
will be much better done than I could do it, by my 
esteemed friend and brother on whom with such 
obvious propriety this duty has been devolved. 

Brethren, farewell ! — " Eemember him who had the 
rule over you, who has spoken unto you the word of 
the Lord — whose faith follow, considering the end of 
his conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to- 
day, and for ever/' — " And we desire that every one 
of you do show the same diligence to the full assur- 
ance of hope to the end, that ye be not slothful, but 
followers of them who through faith and patience in- 
herit the promises. " " Farewell. Be perfect — be of 
good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the 
God of love and peace will be with you " supplying 
" all your need according to the riches of his glory 
in Christ Jesus," " to whom be glory for ever and 
ever. Amen." 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH: 
A SERMON 

PREACHED OK LORD'S DAY, THE 25TH OF DECEMBEE, 1853, 

IX WEST GEORGE STREET CHAPEL, GLASGOW, 

ON THE 

OCCASION OE THE DECEASE OE 

THE REV. DR. WARDLAW. 

BY 

WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D. 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 



II. KINGS ii. 12. 

"And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My Father, my Father! the 
chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." 

One of the principal lessons which the Bible is de- 
signed to teach man is that he should look for his 
supreme felicity and his best inheritance in God. 
Perhaps we should rather say that this is the great 
ultimate lesson of the Bible, to the hearty and full 
reception of which it is the design of all its other 
lessons to bring man. God has so made us that it is 
only as we consciously live and move and have our 
being in Him that we can be truly blessed ; and the 
result to which the Bible would bring us is that, in 
grateful and intelligent acknowledgment of this, we 
should "yield ourselves unto God," not only in a 
dutiful obedience to his will, but in a loving, trusting, 
joyful and unreserved dependence upon Him. It 
would bring us to the point of seeing in Him all that 
is lovely, and finding out of Him nothing that is truly 
desirable. It would teach us to feel that " all our 
springs are in Him." It would bring us to such a 
continual sense of his fulness and his tenderness that 
we shall say as the daily experience of our hearts, 



48 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

"Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is 
none in all the earth that I desire besides thee. My 
flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength 
of my heart, and my portion for ever." 

In teaching us this lesson the Bible aims at bring- 
ing us under an influence directly antagonist to that 
which sin has exercised upon us. The great lesson 
which sin has worked into the soul of man is one of 
distrust of God and aversion from God. It makes 
us think of him as our enemy. It breeds doubts of 
his kindness, his benevolence, nay of his fairness and 
equity, in our bosoms. It fosters in our hearts a 
spirit of pride, a sense of independence, a disposition 
to magnify self and to lean upon our own resources. 
Under the influence of this discipline the mind is 
carried, with ever accelerated rapidity, away from 
God. Even experience of our own weakness and 
ignorance and helplessness fails to offer any effectual 
counteractive to this downward course ; the depraved 
mind recovers from the momentary disappointment 
only to build a new altar to its idol, or to call to its 
help another taken from among the creatures around. 
The true object of worship is forgotten. The foun- 
tain of living waters is deserted. Men cast the 
knowledge of God out of their thoughts. And 
though living in a world which God has made and 
which teems with evidences of his being and perfec- 
tions, they are in that world " without God/' 

The only effectual cure for this evil state of mind 
is that which Christianity offers. By revealing to us 
" God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, 
not imputing to men their trespasses," it corrects our 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 49 

false conceptions of God, it soothes the asperity of 
our rebellious nature, it wins us to be at peace with 
Him, and it shows us the path by which we may 
regain his lost favour and likeness. Imbued with 
its lessons, permeated by its influence, we turn unto 
the Lord and seek our portion in him. With a pro- 
found consciousness of want, we are led to cleave 
unto him as the Being who alone can understand 
our case and relieve our necessities. And as the 
power of that religion which the Bible reveals be- 
comes more deeply and extensively felt by us, we 
are brought ever nearer and nearer unto God, are 
led ever more and more to place all our dependence 
upon him, are drawn to seek all our delight in him, 
and are taught to be willing to part with all that is 
earthly, with all that is created, if thereby we may 
be more fully occupied with God. 

In order, however, to learn this great lesson and 
experience this high moral renovation, it is not neces- 
sary that we should overlook or undervalue the 
objects of interest which are around us. One of the 
peculiar excellences of the Bible lies in this, that it 
proposes to wean us from earth and self and man, by 
a process which leaves us free to render to all of these 
the whole amount of respect and attention that they 
deserve. Mere human wisdom has never been able 
to hit upon any method of raising the moral condi- 
tion of the race but by teaching men to play the 
ascetic ; — to escape temptation by rushing into soli- 
tude, to conquer passion by treating the body as an 
enemy and in itself evil, to shun man-worship by 
indulging misanthropy, and to rise nearer to God by 

D 



60 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

neglecting the duties which God in his Providence 
has laid upon us. The folly and mischief of all such 
schemes have been abundantly demonstrated wher- 
ever they have been tried : the experiment has inva- 
riably ended in only making the individual more 
intensely selfish than before, and adding to his origi- 
nal ungodliness tempers and dispositions which render 
him the enemy of his fellows. It is not thus that 
the Bible proposes to recover us to God. It unfolds 
to us a deeper philosophy and brings to bear upon 
us a mightier discipline. It teaches us to rise above 
the world by teaching us to take a just and compre- 
hensive estimate of the worth of the things of earth, 
and to use them so as not to abuse them. It weans 
us from self by delivering us from morbid and dis- 
torted views of our own personal importance, and 
showing us how a sound and enlightened self-love 
will lead us to seek our supreme happiness in the 
great centre of Light and Love. And it saves us 
from putting our trust in man, not by teaching us to 
despise our race, not by leading us to dwell in bit- 
terness and scornfulness on the faults or the failings 
of those around us, not by bidding us withhold our 
admiration for the noble, the beautiful or the good 
that may display itself in the characters of men, but 
by impressing upon us the great ethical truth that as 
all the excellences that adorn the creature are de- 
rived immediately from God, it behoves us to admire 
these not so much in themselves as in their relation 
to Him — to see the Giver in the gift — and from the 
lustre that is reflected by the creature to ascend to 
some worthier conception of the exceeding glory of 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 51 

him who is "the Father of lights, and from whom 
every good gift and every perfect gift cometh 
down." 

It is on this ground that it becomes right for us to 
do homage to men of worth and genius whilst they 
live, and to hold them in grateful and honourable 
remembrance when they are gone. So long as we 
do not put them in the place of God or suffer our 
admiration of them to seduce us from that supreme 
and unreserved worship of God which is the first of 
all duties, our sense of respect for them can hardly 
be too high. There is nothing more beautiful, 
nothing more noble, nothing more godlike out of 
heaven than a fine intellect in alliance with holiness 
and goodness. And when God permits one so gifted 
to dwell amongst us for a season, and to shed on us 
the rays of his intelligence, and to quicken and charm 
us by his virtues, it would be alike contrary to the 
highest and finest impulses of our nature, and un- 
grateful to the author of all good, were we to turn 
from the spectacle with indifference, or to experience 
the withdrawal of such an one from amongst us 
without sorrow and lamentation. 

If authority is wanted for the indulgence of such 
feelings we have it abundantly in the Bible. Is it 
not written there that " the memory of the just is 
blessed ?" * Are we not told that " the righteous 
shall be held in everlasting remembrance ? " f Does it 
not stand there recorded as a curse pronounced upon 
the wicked that " they shall not lament for him, say- 

* Prov. x. 7. f Psalm cxii. 6. 



52 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

ing, Ah my brother, or ah sister ! They shall not 
lament for him saying, Ah Lord, or ah his glory ?" * 
Was it not from the lips of our Lord himself that the 
noble eulogy on his forerunner John the Baptist fell : 
" He was a burning and a shining light, and ye were 
willing for a season to rejoice in his light ?"f Has 
not Christ himself showed us that holy and sinless 
tears may be shed over the grave of departed worth ? 
When Stephen the first martyr of the cross fell, did 
not " devout men carry him to his burial and make 
great lamentation over him ?" J And does not the 
Apostle, whilst unfolding a revelation concerning the 
blessed estate of those that are asleep, in order that 
we may not " sorrow for them as others who have no 
hope,"§ by that very language intimate that if our 
grief be not such as to cast discredit on our princi- 
ples we may legitimately indulge it ? No ; a morbid 
fanaticism or a haughty stoicism may teach men that 
there is virtue in being unmoved by the loss of the 
loved or the venerated ; but Christianity, ever true 
to that nature it has been designed to restore, incul- 
cates no such lesson. It rather dignifies sorrow and 
gives sacredness to tears, — commanding us as a reli- 
gious duty to " weep with those that weep," and only 
forbidding us that excess in sorrow which would 
unfit us for duty or be unworthy of those to whom 
" life and immortality have been brought to light/' 

It was in this spirit of chastened but genuine sor- 
row that Elisha uttered the lamentation recorded in 



* Jer. xxiir 18. t J °hn v. 35. | Acts viii. 2. 

§ 1 Thess. iv. 13, 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 53 

my text. Suddenly, and yet not altogether unex- 
pectedly, had his master and teacher been taken from 
him. Forewarned by prophetic impulses that his 
departure was at hand, Elijah had withdrawn with 
his attendant and destined successor, who would not 
leave him, to a solitary place beyond Jordan. There 
they had entered into earnest conference respecting 
coming events, and Elisha feeling that he had fallen 
upon evil times and foreseeing that a career of dan- 
ger, difficulty and toil lay before him, had asked of 
Elijah that a double portion of his spirit might rest 
upon him : — that is, as I apprehend, not that Elisha 
might have twice as much of the prophetic spirit as 
Elijah, but that in the farewell benediction of the 
Father-prophet he might occupy the place of the 
eldest son, and receive of that spirit which Elijah was 
to leave as a legacy to his sons the prophets, a por- 
tion twice as large as that of any of the others. To 
this request Elijah gave a conditional answer, and 
they resumed their conference and their journey; 
when suddenly they were arrested and separated 
from each other by the miraculous apparition of a 
chariot of fire and horses of fire. By this Elijah was 
carried up into heaven, " changed in a moment, in 
the twinkling of an eye," realising the wish of the 
Apostle by " being not unclothed " by the hand of 
death but " overclothed with his house which is from 
heaven," not passing to life through death but having 
" mortality swallowed up of life." It was then that 
Elisha, feeling all his desolation now that that strong 
spirit on which he had been accustomed to lean was 
taken from him, uttered the cry of my text, "My 



54 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the 
horsemen thereof." 

These words express at once Elisha's reverence 
for Elijah and his sense of personal and public loss 
sustained by his removal. 

He recognised in Elijah a Father. This title has 
reference to the relation in which the departed pro- 
phet had stood to him as his teacher. It was cus- 
tomary among the Jews for scholars so to designate 
their instructors ; and that, not merely as a mark of 
respect, but as an acknowledgment of the formative 
influence of their teaching upon the opinions and 
modes of thought of their scholars. Elisha owed 
much, we might say owed all that he had in this 
respect, to Elijah. The latter had found him at the 
plough, had been the instrument of calling him to 
the prophetic office, had retained him as his imme- 
diate attendant, and had bestowed upon the forming 
and the filling of his mind more pains, perhaps, than 
on any other of the sons of the prophets. A grateful 
sense of the kindness thus showed occupied the mind 
of the younger prophet, and therefore his first impulse 
when Elijah was carried away from him was to give 
vent to his private sorrows, and cry after him, " My 
Father, my Father!" 

But private sorrow must yield to public calamity. 
Whatever Elijah had been to Elisha he had been far 
more to Israel, and however great had been the loss 
to Elisha personally occasioned by the removal of 
Elijah, it had, in that day of darkness and danger, 
been far greater to the nation. For many years 
Elijah had been the rallying point for all that was 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 55 

left of piety in Israel. He was the bulwark of the 
cause of true religion against the bold assaults of 
idolatry, and the tyrannical oppression of idolatrous 
kings. When it seemed as if every knee throughout 
the land had bowed to Baal, that stern front was 
still reared aloft ; and from those lips, which no kiss 
of the idol had polluted, there rolled the fearless 
challenge and the awful denunciation of the prophet 
of Jehovah. Never faltering, never compromising ; 
retiring, it is true, when the tide was too strong for 
him to withstand, but retiring only to gather fresh 
strength and wait for a fitting opportunity to renew 
the conflict; standing often to all human appearance 
alone; opposed by all the power of the throne and 
all the influence of the mob ; this noble man had, 
with undaunted courage, maintained for many years 
a determined stand for the cause of God and truth, 
and sought to preserve his country from the evils of 
unmitigated idolatry. He had thus, as Elisha well 
knew, proved himself Israel's greatest benefactor and 
strongest defence. His efforts and his prayers had 
done more to protect the state from utter ruin than 
all the chariots and horsemen which, contrary to the 
divine command, these idolatrous princes had accu- 
mulated. The flame of piety and purity, which he 
had kept burning, had alone preserved the land from 
being overspread with a very " horror of darkness." 
The vilest idolatry, celebrated with the most pollut- 
ing rites, had usurped the place of that worship which 
the One living and true God had instituted for him- 
self; and only the little band, which the zeal and 
fortitude of Elijah had kept together, resisted the 



56 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

influence under which the nation had sunk. Like a 
green island in the midst of a black and stormy 
ocean, it alone smiled and bore fruit; whilst around 
it the tempest raged and every billow threatened to 
engulph it. What was to become of it when Elijah 
was gone ? Who now was to take hold of spear and 
buckler and stand in the breach for the defence of 
the endangered church? To Elisha, on whom the 
lot had fallen to step into his master's place, the pros- 
pect seemed dark indeed. His personal sorrows 
were lost in the more appalling calamity that had 
befallen his people and his cause. To him there had 
been the loss of a friend and a Father ; but they had 
lost their glory and their defence. Their bulwark 
was removed just when it seemed he could least be 
spared. I think I can see the look of wan despair 
with which Elisha beheld Elijah swept away from 
him in his chariot of fire. I think I can hear the 
accents of piercing grief with which he exclaimed 
after him, " My Father, my Father, the chariot of 
Israel and the horsemen thereof." I think I see him, 
when the dread certainty that he should look on that 
loved and honoured form no more burst upon his 
mind, taking hold of his clothes and rending them 
by one convulsive effort into two pieces. His was a 
manly sorrow for an irreparable loss ; honourable 
alike to him who showed it and to him by whose 
departure it was occasioned. 

From these cursory illustrations of my text I must 
now turn to that which forms the special occasion 
of my at present addressing you from this place. I 
have chosen to introduce what I have to offer re- 



ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 57 

specting the character and claims of your late revered 
pastor by a reference to this part of Scripture for two 
reasons, the one of a simply accidental and personal 
kind, the other arising from a conviction that there is 
a certain fitness in it to the circumstances in which 
we find ourselves this clay. 

It is nearly nineteen years since I sat listening to 
an exposition of the narrative from which my text is 
taken, delivered by him whose recent departure from 
amongst us has clothed us this day in the garb of 
mourners. The occasion was to me one of peculiar 
interest. I had just been ordained to the pastorate 
of the church over which I now preside, and Dr. 
Wardlaw had tarried over the Sabbath to introduce 
me to my charge, and to lend me the influence and 
encouragement of his great name in my new and re- 
sponsible sphere. What led him to discourse from 
this passage I know not; nor do I now remember 
what particular application he made of it in reference 
to the occasion. But I remember well my own feel- 
ings as I sat and listened to him. When I looked up 
to that dignified and graceful form; when I watched 
the play of that exquisitely chiseled brow and calm 
yet animated countenance; when I caught the light 
of that mild and benignant eye, and felt the gentle 
and strengthening influence of those sweetly modu- 
lated tones stealing over my spirit; when I remem- 
bered that he who was then speaking was my father's 
friend as well as my own, and that his name had been 
in my father's family " as a household word ; n I felt 
my soul link itself to him with an almost filial affec- 
tion, and I inwardly cherished the conviction that if 



58 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

I might but walk through life, and labour in the min- 
istry, in the train of such a leader, mine would be a 
happy and an honourable career. Since then my am- 
bition has been, according to my opportunities, " as a 
son with a father to serve with him in the gospel/ ' 
Our intercourse has not been frequent, in consequence 
of the distance of our respective spheres of labour, but 
it has ever been free and cordial. No shadow at any 
time came down upon our friendship. I truly loved 
and honoured him, and 1 believe he returned all my 
love with increase. I do not know that I ever gave 
him any offence; certain I am he never said or did 
anything to me that occasioned one moment's pain. 
We did not always agree in our opinions : there were 
diversities of mental constitution, education, tempera- 
ment and habit which rendered that next to impos- 
sible : but our differences were never such as to ex* 
cite unkindly feelings, and they never led to even a 
momentary suspension of our friendship. I look back 
upon our intercourse with the liveliest sense of grate- 
ful satisfaction. The retrospect is to me all bright 
and cloudless ; and I feel it to be one of the greatest 
blessings of my life that I was permitted to possess 
and to retain to the last such a friend. 

Under such circumstances you will not be surprised 
that the first feeling that took possession of my mind, 
when I heard of his decease, was a deep and poignant 
sense of my own personal loss ; nor will you be sur- 
prised that my first impulse this day is to speak to 
you of his character as a friend. On this theme my 
heart would fain let itself out. I could dilate on it 
long and earnestly and with ease. I could dwell 



ELTSHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 59 

upon his amiable manners, his sweet temper, his 
kindly accents, his delicate regard for the feelings of 
others, his dignified cheerfulness, his prompt appre- 
ciation of whatever was interesting to those whom he 
loved, his quick and warm sympathy with them in all 
that grieved or gladdened them, his generous delight 
in all their successes, and his unhesitating readiness to 
serve them in whatever way lay in his power. I could 
tell how much they seemed to be in his mind — how 
accurate was his recollection of all their affairs so far 
as these were known to him — how easy it was to 
touch the springs of emotion in him by any allusion 
to them — and with what a personal interest he en- 
tered into all that concerned them or theirs. I could 
tell of many instances in my own experience when 
the promptness of his sympathy took me by surprise, 
whilst the wise and kindly words in which he ex- 
pressed it went down into the heart, increasing the 
joy of prosperity and alleviating the pang of sorrow. 
It is all fresh before me. I seem still to feel the 
warm pressure of his hand. I seem to see the mild 
beaming or the melting tenderness of his eye. I 
seem to hear his voice in tones of cheerful congratu- 
lation or soothing sympathy speaking to my heart. I 
could linger on the scenes that memory calls up of 
our past intercourse. But it must not be. I am not 
here to indulge personal affection or to dwell upon 
private sorrows. Let me turn to contemplate our de- 
parted friend and father in his public relations as a 
man and as a minister of the word. 

I have spoken of my text as appropriate to the cir- 
cumstances in which we find ourselves this day. I 



60 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

allude to the loss which this church, which the reli- 
gious denomination of which this church forms a part, 
and which the cause of Christ generally has sustained 
in the removal of your late pastor. It will not be 
supposed for a moment that I mean to claim for him 
the dignity of a prophet, or to insinuate that any such 
issues hung upon his life as hung upon that of Elijah. 
I find the point of analogy merely in the prominence 
of his position as a minister of Christ, and in the sense 
of great loss which presses itself upon us this day not 
in relation to ourselves individually so much as in 
relation to the cause in which we are embarked. Of 
this Christian society Dr. Wardlaw was the founder, 
under his administration it has grown from small be- 
ginnings to its present strength, and for more than 
fifty years his teaching has supplied to its members 
the main portion of their spiritual nutriment. Of 
the denomination to which he belonged Dr. Ward- 
law was one of the earliest adherents, and he has for 
many years been its chief ornament and its strongest 
pillar. And in the church at large he stood forth as 
one of its most gifted teachers, to whom many eyes 
were turned, and for whose prowess in defence of her 
cardinal doctrines and success in the propagation of 
her principles many hearts were grateful. When such 
a man is taken away who shall blame those to whom 
the loss comes home most pungently, or charge them 
with extravagance, if they cry after him, " My father, 
my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
thereof?" 

Ealph Wardlaw was born at Dalkeith on the 22d 
December 1779. Six months after his birth he was 



ELISHA'S CRT AFTER ELIJAH. 61 

removed to Glasgow where the rest of his life was 
spent. His father was long known and esteemed in 
this city as a merchant of high respectability, and a 
Christian who adorned his profession, at once by the 
steadfast uprightness of his conduct, and the serene 
cheerfulness of his manners; and who, for several 
years, filled, with credit to himself and acceptance to 
his fellow-citizens, the office of a magistrate of the city. 
By the mother's side, Dr. Wardlaw was descended 
from Ebenezer Erskine, the Father of the Secession 
Church, and a man of whom Scottish Christianity is 
justly proud, as one of the noblest of its confessors. 

When nearly eight years of age, Dr. Wardlaw was 
sent to the Grammar School of Glasgow, where he 
continued for four years. His next step was to the 
University of Glasgow, which he entered in October 
1791, when not quite twelve years of age. 

Having finished the usual academical curriculum, 
he entered the Theological Seminary of the Secession 
Church — with which religious body he was then con- 
nected — for the purpose of prosecuting such studies 
as were requisite in order to the sacred office. His 
instructor here was the venerable Dr. Lawson of Sel- 
kirk. 

Whilst Dr. Wardlaw was prosecuting his studies 
under Dr. Lawson, Scotland was the scene of consi- 
derable excitement, in consequence of the secession, 
from the Established Church, of the Kev. Messrs. 
Evring and Lines, followed by large numbers of pious 
and some influential people. From this arose the 
Congregational Churches of Scotland; for nearly all 
who left the Establishment with Messrs. Ewing and 



62 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

Lines adopted Congregational views of church polity 
— views which, previously to that time, were little 
known, and perhaps proportionately abhorred, by the 
good people of the North. The circumstance of two 
ministers voluntarily relinquishing their livings to 
embrace these views, the zeal which they and their 
adherents manifested in the cause in which they had 
embarked, and the efforts they put forth for the spiri- 
tual benefit of their countrymen, created no small stir 
in various parts of the country. Some were filled 
with indignation ; others expressed contempt ; but 
not a few were led in earnest to attend to the subject 
of religion, and many good and able men united 
themselves to the rising sect. Amongst others was 
the yet youthful Wardlaw. Already had he finished 
his preparatory studies, and was about to take license 
as a preacher, when his views on church polity under- 
went a change, and he found himself at one with a 
party whose sudden rise had disturbed the previously 
almost unbroken reign of Presbyterianism in the 
North. He accordingly joined the church which had 
been formed in Glasgow, under the pastoral care of 
Mr. Ewing, and determined to exercise his ministry 
as a Congregationalist. Shortly after, a chapel hav- 
ing, with the aid of a few of his friends, been erected 
by him in Albion Street, in that city, the building 
was, for the first time, occupied for worship on the 
occasion of his being ordained as the pastor of a 
church which had been recently formed, in fraternity 
with that of which Mr. Ewing was pastor. This took 
place on the 16th of February 1803, when Mr. Ewing 
offered the ordination prayer, and gave the charge. 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 63 

The cordiality with which Mr. Ewing witnessed the 
formation of the new church, and welcomed his youth- 
ful associate to the pastorate of it, was an auspicious 
omen, which the subsequent experience of nearly 
forty years of close intimacy and hearty co-operation 
amply verified. 

In 1811, Dr. Wardlaw was placed in a still closer 
official connection with Mr. Ewing, as one of the 
tutors in the Theological Academy, instituted that 
year for the training of suitable persons for the work 
of the ministry amongst the Congregationalists of 
Scotland. 

The popularity which Dr. Wardlaw acquired as a 
preacher, was not of that mushroom sort which springs 
up hastily, and as hastily passes away. His qualities 
in the pulpit were all of the substantial order ; and 
hence only those who were really in search of reli- 
gious improvement would be likely to frequent his 
ministry. So many such, however, had gathered 
around him, that in 1819 Albion Street Chapel be- 
came too small to accommodate the congregation, 
and the necessity of providing a larger place led to 
the erection of the house in which we are now assem- 
bled. This building was opened for divine worship 
on the 25th of December 1819, just thirty-four years 
ago this very day. 

As pastor of this church and Theological Tutor in 
the Academy, Dr. Wardlaw laboured with growing- 
success and reputation. Not long after he came to 
officiate in this place his attainments as a theologian 
were appropriately acknowledged by an honorary de- 
gree of D.D., from one of the most distinguished of 



64 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

the colleges of the United States — a merited honour 
which it could have been wished his own Alma Mater 
had had the credit of conferring. In February of 
this present year he reached the 50th anniversary of 
his pastorate, an event which was appropriately cele- 
brated by services and deeds which must still be fresh 
in the remembrance of all whom I address. For some 
months after this his health continued firm and he 
was enabled to discharge the functions of his office. 
But in the month of August last he began to suffer 
in a way that occasioned anxiety to those around 
him. All means that skill or affection could devise 
were tried, but failed to subdue the severity of the 
pain under which he suffered; and at length, after 
several months of acute agony and diminishing strength 
endured with the utmost patience and cheerfulness, 
his naturally strong constitution sank under the pres- 
sure of disease, and he was taken to his rest on Sat- 
urday the 17th of December 1853, having all but 
completed his 74th year. A high testimony to the 
esteem in which he was held was furnished at his 
funeral when his remains were conveyed to their final 
resting-place by hundreds of his fellow-citizens, in- 
cluding the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council of 
this city, and the clergy of all denominations. 

The position to which Dr. Wardlaw attained in the 
church and in the estimation of the general public 
was due entirely, under Grod, to his own ability, 
fidelity and diligence. He was not indebted for it 
to any of those happy accidents which sometimes con- 
fer an adventitious celebrity upon men whose real 
merits would never have helped them out of obscu- 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 65 

rity. He fairly and honestly earned for himself all 
the honours and all the influence he possessed. 

His natural endowments both of mind and of man- 
ner were of no ordinary kind. His mental develop- 
ment was at once large and symmetrical. He united 
strength and grace in a degree seldom exemplified. 
His faculties were diversified, but all acted in har- 
mony and under excellent control. He was master 
of them; not they of him. Even those powers which 
were most largely developed in him, and which he 
was most fond of indulging, were never permitted to 
carry him off into excess or irregularity. Over all 
there ever presided a calm but regal Will that had 
respect to principle and purpose. Hence he could at 
any time bring all his powers to bear upon his sub- 
ject, with a singular concentration and intensity. He 
had no occasion to wait for the afflatus or inspiration 
of genius. The whole man with all his powers was 
there, ready to apply himself with full force to the 
work in hand. From this arose at once his power to 
do so much, and the fact that he always did his work 
like himself. Whilst another man might have been 
labouring to bring himself to the point of beginning, 
Dr. Wardlaw was already in full work, his whole 
mind concentrated on what was before him, and his 
facile pen speeding in graceful and uniform charac- 
ters across the page. I do not know that he was ever 
behind with any work which he had undertaken to 
do : he might often be hard pressed to accomplish it, 
but he always did it, and that in a manner worthy of 
himself. There was nothing eruptive, nothing fitful 
in the action of his mind. It was not the volcano 

E 



66 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

bursting after long intervals of repose into tempests 
of flame and shaking the earth with its thunder ; it 
was the quiet and steadfast star that always shines in 
the same place with the same lustre, and to which 
men learn to look as to a guide that never is unsteady 
and never disappoints. 

The most prominent feature of Dr. Wardlaw's 
mind lay in his rare powers of analysis and ratiocina- 
tion. His intellect was eminently dialectic and dia- 
critical. Those faculties which lead men to be his- 
torians, or naturalists, or poets, or men of science, he 
either did not largely possess or did not care to cultivate. 
He was not given to the minute observation or care- 
ful collection of mere facts. His mind did not readily 
occupy itself with deductive processes, whether exer- 
cised upon concrete phenomena or on the abstract 
relations of number and space. He had little of the 
creative faculty, and was at all times more disposed 
to note the distinctions of things than to trace their 
analogies or resemblances. His peculiar walk was 
that of the philosopher and the critic. The qualities 
that go to furnish men for these departments he pos- 
sessed and had cultivated to a high degree. His 
power of analysis was great: he could separate an 
entangled mesh of thought with marvellous perspi- 
cacity, and discriminate conceptions from each other 
with a fineness of perception that was sometimes too 
acute for ordinary faculties to follow. He had no 
pleasure in seeing things hazily or merely in the 
mass ; it was needful for him to ascertain them with 
precision and to mark clearly both their individual 
proportions and their relative bearings. On this he 



elisha's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 67 

thought no pains too great to be spent ; and when 
he was satisfied that the subject was one on which 
no amount of penetration or research that he could 
put forth would secure for him clear and definite 
conceptions regarding it, he judged it better to let it 
altogether alone than to have only a confused, illogi- 
cal and incogitable notion of it. To this power and 
this love of analytical investigation he added compre- 
hensiveness of survey and sagacity of decision. 
There are men whose acuteness is wonderful, but 
whose mental eye is merely microscopic: men who 
can make great discoveries among the Infusoria of 
thought, but for whom the field occupied by the 
larger objects is too extensive to be included within 
their survey. It was not so with Dr. AVardlaw. His 
view was penetrating, but it was also extensive. He 
deliberated as well as analysed; and calmly contem- 
plated the whole field of observation before he ven- 
tured upon a decision. His induction was wide no 
less than discriminating. With patient diligence he 
collected all that could be ascertained upon any sub- 
ject, weighed the whole in the scales of a nicely-bal- 
anced judgment, and refused to come to a conclusion 
until he was satisfied that every thing that ought to 
have entered into his estimate had received due at- 
tention. And in coming to his decision he was aided 
by strong native sagacity and shrewdness, which pre- 
vented his being easily imposed upon by the mere 
appearances of things, or being readily drawn into 
the error of overestimating the premises on which his 
conclusion was built. Hence the logical accuracy 
which formed such a marked characteristic of his 



68 ELISHA'S CRT AFTER ELIJAH. 

reasonings, and the solidity and soundness which 
usually recommended his judgments. 

A mind thus endowed was naturally fitted for the 
investigation and exposition of moral and religious 
truth ; and to this department Dr. Wardlaw from an 
early period devoted his best energies. He found 
peculiar delight in the exercise of his reasoning- 
powers upon those questions which are to be deter- 
mined by a weighing of probable evidence ; and it 
was beautiful to see the skill with which he appor- 
tioned to each scale its proper contents, and the 
steadiness with which he held the balance that was 
to determine which had the preponderance. Had he 
been led to devote himself to the legal profession he 
would undoubtedly have risen to high distinction, 
and his name might have gone down to posterity 
with those of Mansfield or Denman as one of the 
most perspicacious and at the same time most refined 
of judges. But he had chosen another and in the 
most weighty respects a higher sphere of labour, 
where there was also ample scope for the exercise of 
his peculiar abilities. Here he shone with few to rival 
him. When some difficult or intricate question in 
which he was interested, came to be handled by him, 
his treatment of it was sure to be such as to afford to 
all who could enter into it a logical treat ; and though 
this in itself was a tendency capable of being used 
for evil as well as for good, there were certain moral 
qualities associated with it in the mind of Dr. Ward- 
law which made its operation in him ever lean to the 
better side. He had a sincere love of truth for its 
own sake, and an honest desire to apprehend it. He 



ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 69 

was calm and candid in his estimate of opposing pro- 
babilities. He exercised great caution in coming to 
a conclusion ; and was almost timid in expressing an 
opinion where he had not enjoyed the fullest oppor- 
tunities of judging. By these influences, combined 
with his strong religious sense of responsibility, he 
was, though a singularly dexterous controversialist, and 
disposed to find peculiar gratification in the exercise 
of his reasoning powers, preserved from that mere 
intellectual gladiatorship, and that craving for victory 
rather than love of truth which too often ensnare 
the expert disputant and lead to a mischievous abuse 
of his powers. 

But whilst the ratiocinative and critical faculties 
constituted the main strength of Dr. Wardlaw's mind, 
there were other qualities which lent grace and re- 
finement to all his intellectual exercises. He was 
gifted with an exact and elegant taste. His sense of 
the becoming and the beautiful both in reality and 
in sentiment was quick and just. His fancy, if not 
rich or copious, was lively, natural and refined. Like 
many men of acute intellectual powers he possessed 
also a felicitous and playful wit ; the exercise of 
which, however, he reserved for moments of social 
hilarity — never using it as an instrument of assault, 
never indulging it for mere purposes of display, never 
making any use of it when business of serious import 
was in hand, and never in his most unrestrained 
moments allowing it to trespass beyond the limits 
which the strictest propriety of taste and feeling im- 
posed. 

To a character thus strong and graceful by natural 



70 ELISHA ? S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

endowment were added those advantages which 
education and religion confer. The child of intelli- 
gent and godly parents, he was from his earliest years 
brought under influences calculated to improve his 
mind and sanctify his heart. Nor were these pious 
efforts fruitless. In all those branches of knowledge 
which are usually studied at our Scottish schools and 
universities Dr. Wardlaw had made respectable pro- 
ficiency, and in some his attainments were greatly 
beyond the average. Without pretending to be a 
profound scholar he was familiar with the learned 
tongues; and though his natural tastes and tenden- 
cies did not lead him to pay much attention to natural 
science, he was not indifferent to the importance of 
that department of knowledge, nor ignorant of the 
splendid advances which the genius and methods of 
its votaries have of late years enabled them to make. 
In philosophy and polite literature, however, he was 
most at home ; and with nearly all the great English 
writers in these departments he was well acquainted. 
I believe Cowper was his favourite among our poets, 
and Dugald Stewart among our philosophers. All 
our great ethical writers had been carefully studied 
by him ; but with none df them was he fully satisfied, 
for which he has himself stated his reasons in one of 
his published writings. In theology his reading, if 
not very extensive, had been carefully selected; and 
every part of the field minutely and anxiously sur- 
veyed. The writings of Dr. Edward Williams, An- 
drew Fuller, Archibald M'Lean, and some of our 
older Scottish divines such as Ricaltoun, he held in 
peculiar estimation, and upon them many of his own 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 71 

opinions were formed. But his tastes were not con- 
tracted in this department; he was ready to receive 
further light from whatever quarter it might come; 
and to the last was fond of seeing whatever new ac- 
cessions had been made to the stores of biblical or 
theological learning. 

At what period Dr. Wardlaw became the subject 
of a saving change I am not informed ; but it must 
have been whilst he was yet young that the seeds of 
parental instruction began to germinate in his soul. 
During his lengthened public career his piety formed 
a conspicuous feature of his character. It was marked 
by cheerfulness, simplicity, humility and earnestness. 
There was nothing morbid, artificial, affected, inflated, 
or morose in his religious development. Firmly con- 
vinced of the truth of what he held, and earnestly 
realizing his own personal interest in the doctrines of 
the gospel, he " lived a life of faith upon the Son of 
God " which exerted a congenial and plastic influence 
upon his whole demeanour and deportment. The 
fountain of his religion was within, and its streams 
mingled with and gave a character to all the issues of 
his life. And as he grew older — as he advanced fur- 
ther into the valley of the shadow of death, and felt 
himself approaching the end of his earthly activity, it 
was manifest to all that his mind was becoming ever 
more and more affected by spiritual influences. He 
was not less cheerful, not less interested in what was 
going on around him; he only seemed to look at 
things from a loftier point and to estimate them by a 
more heavenly standard. " The powers of the world 
to come" had laid a more entire arrest upon all his 



72 elisha's cry after Elijah, 

energies, but they had cast no shadow upon his spirit. 
The pleasant light beamed in him, clear and joyous 
as before; it was only more mellowed in its lustre, 
and, it may be, more continuous in its shining. 

The qualities of intellectual and moral worth that 
belong to a man may command for him the admira- 
tion or draw forth to him the love of those by whom 
they are beheld; but it depends upon the uses to 
which a man puts his powers and his resources 
whether we shall truly and permanently honour him. 
In this respect Dr. Wardlaw's merits will bear to be 
tested by the loftiest standard of mere human excel- 
lence. As a Member of society, as a Minister of the 
gospel, as an Ecclesiastic, as a Theological Professor, 
and as an Author, he has established for himself a 
place in the estimation of the church and of the world 
such as (to use the words of Milton), " God and good 
men have consented shall be the reward of those 
whose labours advance the good of mankind." 

In general society Dr. Wardlaw was distinguished 
by a dignified courtesy that had in it somewhat of 
the manners of a bygone age. In his perfect self- 
possession, the somewhat measured grace of his move- 
ments, the blandness of his manners, his undeviating 
politeness, and his graceful way of saying pleasant 
things, he always reminded me of those agreeable and 
polished specimens of the gentleman of the old school 
of whom one reads as gracing the coteries of the last 
century, and of whom a few specimens were seen 
even in the early part of the present. Connected 
from his earliest infancy with this great city, he seemed 
ever to bear himself in public as became one who felt 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 73 

that he was " a citizen of no mean city/' In all that 
concerned the wellbeing of the community among 
which he lived, he took a lively interest. Cast upon 
times of great public activity, he was never behind in 
the demands made upon him as one of the leaders of 
public opinion and action. In him all good and bene- 
ficent causes found a willing as well as able advocate. 
Without for a moment forgetting what was due to his 
position as a minister of Christ, he was ready to lend 
his influence to all movements which he thought cal- 
culated to advance the interests of his country or the 
race. He was a steadfast friend of the education of 
the people at a time when the education of the peo- 
ple was not so popular as it has since become. He 
was the advocate* of all measures calculated to pro- 
mote civil and religious liberty at home and abroad. 
He stood forth the stanch and uncompromising oppo- 
nent of slavery in all its forms. He was found in 
his place when the nation rose to utter its firm but 
constitutional protest against measures which imposed 
fetters upon the commercial energies of the empire, 
and restricted the food of the people. His was a 
true patriot's heart : he loved his country without 
being blind to her defects ; and he sought her good 
not by flattering her prejudices but by striving, 
through good report or through bad report, to pro- 
mote her real welfare. 

He who was thus interested in schemes of general 
beneficence was, as might be expected, still more so 
in operations of a more strictly Christian character. 
To the Bible Society important services were from 
an early period rendered by him ; and in the cause of 



74 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

Missions to the heathen he was warmly and profoundly 
interested. To this sacred cause he not only devoted 
the best energies of his intellect and effort, but gave it 
far dearer pledges of his attachment. Not fewer than 
three of his children were freely, may I not say joy- 
fully? — surrendered by him to labour personally on 
the field, one of whom was called to precede him to 
the land of rest, while another still occupies his im- 
portant sphere of labour in the East, a devoted and 
useful missionary, and a third returned some years 
ago a widow with her children to reside under the 
paternal roof. 

As a Minister of the gospel Dr. Wardlaw's claims 
rest upon his services as Pastor of this Christian 
flock, and as a Preacher of the Truth in this city. On 
the former of these topics I feel that it is not for me to 
dilate, in the presence of those whose own recollec- 
tions will furnish them with far more just and vivid 
impressions derived from personal intercourse with 
Dr. Wardlaw in this relation, than I as a mere 
observer can supply. To you, Brethren, it was given 
to observe, through a long series of years, how faith- 
fully he acquitted himself of the duties of his office 
among you, For more than half-a-century he was 
permitted to go in and out before this church as its 
Pastor. You have fully known his doctrine, manner 
of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, and pa- 
tience. Ye are witnesses how holily, and justly, and 
unblameably he behaved himself among you that be- 
lieve. You have seen (and seeing must have admired) 
how wisely and skilfully he administered our peculiar 
and somewhat delicate church polity amongst you; 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 75 

how gently and yet how firmly he admonished the 
backsliding, reproved the transgressor, and warned 
the careless; how judiciously he counselled the per- 
plexed, how tenderly he assisted the weak, how af- 
fectionately he comforted the sorrowing, and how, for 
these many years, he has been indeed as a Father 
among you in all wisdom and in all affection. You 
know how he refused again and again to leave you 
when he was not merely invited but solicited to occu- 
py spheres of larger emolument as well as of greater 
ease and dignity; esteeming it a duty and a privilege 
to continue to break among you the bread of life so 
long as God should be pleased to spare him. To you 
therefore I need not to speak of his worth as a pas- 
tor; but let me borrow the advantage of your expe- 
rience to tell the world that in most of the finest 
features of the pastoral character he had no superior 
and very few equals. 

As a Preacher Dr. Wardlaw acquired true fame 
rather than popularity. His discourses were for many 
years past invariably read, and though he read as few 
men can read, with an ease, a vivacity and a rythm 
which effectually prevented all appearance of heavi- 
ness in his delivery, yet there can be no doubt that 
this habit was disadvantageous to him as respected his 
access to the popular mind. He made use of very 
little action in the pulpit, — of none indeed, beyond a 
very slight and somewhat regulated motion of the 
hands, with an occasional step backwards when some- 
thing more than usually emphatic was to be uttered. 
His sermons too were more didactic than oratorical 
in their construction; being characterised rather by 



76 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

the gravity of their matter, the perspicuity and force of 
the reasoning, the grace of the diction, and the per- 
suasiveness of his intonation, than by anything like 
rhetorical brilliancy or vehement declamation. His 
main strength lay in his extensive and exact acquaint- 
ance with Scripture, in his argumentative distinctness 
and dexterity, in his refined taste and felicitous ex- 
pression, in his unimpeachable good sense, in the 
practical sagacity with which he detected the relation 
of his subject to the personal interests and respon- 
sibilities of his audience, and in the wise and affec- 
tionate earnestness with which he pressed that upon 
their attention. He seldom indulged in any orna- 
ment or in any play of fancy : he never sought such 
for its own sake, and beyond the occasional introduc- 
tion of some select figure or comparison, he never re- 
sorted to it even for the sake of illustration. He was 
never dull or commonplace ; but his vivacity was that of 
the understanding rather than that of the imagination. 
Sometimes when handling suitable themes a burst of 
feeling would escape him, which was felt to be per- 
fectly genuine, and which seldom failed to communi- 
cate its contagion to the hearers; but he spent no 
time on sentimentalities, and showed no ambition to 
provoke a tear except as that might be the sign of his 
arrow having reached the heart. His chief aim seemed 
always to be to convey fully, clearly, and forcibly to 
the mind of his audience the truth presented by the 
part of Scripture from which he was discoursing. 
Hence he was eminently textual as a preacher, and 
scrupulously faithful as an expositor. Hence also the 
practical character of his discourses. With all his 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 77 

dialectical skill and philosophical tendencies, he 
never made the pulpit the place for mere metaphysi- 
cal disquisition, or abstract speculation. He was far 
above the paltry ambition of seeking to attract notice 
by clothing his thoughts in an obscure, fanciful or 
strange phraseology ; he never verged into the region 
of transcendentalism; he never amused his hearers 
by adroit defences of fantastic hypotheses, by dreamy 
picturings of ill-defined conceptions, or by gymnastic 
displays of logical subtilty. He was always serious, 
solid, earnest, practical ; and though it often required 
an effort of continuous attention on the part of the 
hearer in-order fully to appreciate the train of his 
reasonings and illustrations, everything was so well 
arranged and so perspicaciously brought out, that 
such an effort was sure to be rewarded by a large 
accession of sound and scriptural knowledge. 

In his intercourse with Christians of other deno- 
minations Dr. Wardlaw aimed at uniting conscien- 
tious attachment to his own peculiar views of doc- 
trine, polity and order, with catholicity of affection 
towards all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
cerity and truth. He was a very decided Congrega- 
tionalism He believed that for all the essential ele- 
ments of that form of church polity he could furnish 
undoubted authority from the ISTew Testament. He 
consequently regarded the maintenance of it in 
theory and in practice in the light of a sacred duty 
from which he was not at liberty to shrink. But 
with all this he was able not only to concede to 
others a liberty of differing from him in opinion, but 
very cordially to esteem even those who differed from 



78 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

him most widely, and to rejoice in all their success, 
provided they were at one with him on the great 
fundamental truths of Christianity. For those who 
denied what he firmly believed to be essential to the 
religion of Christ, he was too honest and firm a man 
to profess any other feelings than those which cour- 
tesy and humanity dictated; but within the circle of 
those "who hold the head," he wished to esteem 
every man as " a brother beloved in the Lord/' He 
was first a Christian, then a Congregationalist. His 
heart was open to all good men, even when they held 
opinions on subordinate points, or belonged to insti- 
tutions which he could not but regard as ^decidedly 
unscriptural. It was not possible for one, naturally 
so amiable and generous, to have given up "to a 
party what was meant for mankind," even had he by 
any accident been taught to think that proper. And 
the charity and brotherly -kindness which he thus 
showed to others was largely returned to him by all 
good and honourable men. Christians of every 
evangelical denomination held him in esteem, and 
were ready to co-operate with him. In the heat of 
controversy or in moments of great public excite- 
ment there might be an estrangement of feeling pro- 
duced between him and some whose opinions he op- 
posed; but it never lasted long on either side, and 
when the immediate occasion had passed away old 
ties and old feelings speedily resumed their hold. 
When an attempt was made on one memorable occa- 
sion to injure his fair fame by the most unrighteous 
aspersions, Christians and Christian ministers of all 
parties rallied round him, and felt that the vinclica- 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 79 

tion of his reputation was a common cause ; and 
when a few days ago he was carried to his burial, 
there were devout men not a few of all denomina- 
tions to make lamentation for him and to attest their 
respect for one who in controversy was not more 
remarkable for his ability and prowess than for his 
fairness, charity and amiableness. 

As a Theological Professor, Dr. Wardlaw has laid 
the denomination to which he belonged under obli- 
gations which it is impossible to over-estimate. It 
was an immense advantage to have one so singularly 
fitted for theological investigation placed at the foun- 
tain-head of the professional training of our ministry ; 
and it was no small matter to enjoy the distinction 
of having, as the President of our theological school, 
one whose reputation as a divine was spread almost 
as widely as the language in which he wrote. In 
this part of his work Dr. Wardlaw had great delight, 
and he devoted to it a large share of his best efforts. 
His lectures were admirable specimens of acute dis- 
quisition, perspicacious reasoning, and solid conclu- 
sion. Their aim was principally directed to the elu- 
cidation and defence of that system of truth which 
their author believed to be revealed in the Scrip- 
tures. His theology was primarily biblical, second- 
arily polemical: he sought first to reach the mind of 
the Spirit as unfolded in the written word, and hav- 
ing satisfied himself on this point he summoned all 
the resources of his logic to defend the judgment he 
had formed from cavil or objection. Beyond this he 
did not go much into the region of systematic or his- 
torical theology; while of the speculations of mere 



80 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

philosophical theologians he took little note, as 
either lying beyond the sphere which he had pre- 
scribed for himself, or not likely to be directly useful 
to those whom it was his ambition to train to be 
"able ministers of the New Testament." To those 
who were privileged to attend his prelections, they 
were valuable not only for the amount of sound 
theological knowledge which they imparted, but also 
as models of theological disquisition, and as affording 
an excellent discipline for the faculties of those who 
were destined to teach others. Nor let it be for- 
gotten that for the greater part of the time he filled 
the theological chair in our institution his services 
were rendered gratuitously, and that when at length 
a salary was paid to him it was so small as to be in 
no sense a remuneration for his labours; indeed it 
little more than sufficed to cover the expenses to 
which the discharge of his duties exposed him. If 
any shall say that this was not creditable to the 
denomination whose interests he thus so largely 
served, I can only plead in extenuation that our 
means were limited, and the demands upon us for 
the sustenance of our denominational institutions 
heavy. We were far from being insensible either to 
the great value of his services, or to the disinterested 
fidelity with which they were rendered. 

In addition to his pastoral and professorial exertions, 
Dr. Wardlaw was frequently before the public as an 
author. His writings may be classed under three 
heads — Theological, Homiletical, and Biographical. 
To the first belong his Discourses on the Socinian 
Controversy, his Christian Ethics, his volume on the 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 81 

Atonement, his Letters to the Society of Friends, his 
Treatises on Baptism and Congregationalism, his 
Lectures on Ecclesiastical Establishments, and his 
Essay on Miracles, the latest but not the least im- 
portant of his published writings. Under the second 
head may be ranked his Sermons, of which, besides a 
connected series in a volume, a great number were 
published separately, his Expository Lectures on 
Ecclesiastes, his Lectures on Prostitution, and his 
Exposition of the narrative of the last days of Jacob, 
and the Life of Joseph. To the third class belong 
his Memoir of Dr. M'All of Manchester prefixed to 
flie Collected Discourses of that eminent pulpit orator, 
his Introductory Essay to an edition of Bishop Hall's 
Contemplations, and his Memoir of his son-in-law the 
Rev. John Reid, late of Bellary. Besides these he 
contributed many articles to religious periodicals, 
chiefly of a practical kind. He was the author also 
of several hymns, which in correctness of sentiment, 
beauty of expression, and sweetness of rythm, have 
few to equal them in our language, and will long 
hold a primary place in our collections of sacred 
verse. 

As a Writer Dr. Wardlaw was distinguished by the 
same characteristics as were most conspicuous in him 
as a preacher. All his works are marked by clear- 
ness of conception, cogency of reasoning, soundness 
of judgment and elegance of style. If he does not 
startle us by the originality of his opinions, he never 
offends us by idle extravagances, ill-digested crudi- 
ties, or vague and inane speculations. All is sober, 
judicious and intelligible : the production of one in 

F 



82 ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 

whom " the spirit of a sound mind " was allied with 
a penetrating judgment and a correct taste. He may 
not have made great additions to the domain of 
Theological science ; but no man in our day has done 
so much accurately to define some parts of its bound- 
aries or to determine with precision the relation in 
which each of these parts stands to the rest. As 
a controversialist he was perhaps without an equal, 
certainly without a superior among his cotemporaries. 
In calmness, sagacity, acumen, and logical adroitness 
he was pre-eminent ; whilst the perfect absence of all 
bitterness and personality from his writings invests 
them with a moral worth and an exemplary useful- 
ness to which the productions of but too few polemics 
can lay claim. Not many men have been so much in 
controversy as he was ; and the annals of theological 
literature present the name of no one who in conduct- 
ing controversy less violated the claims of courtesy 
and fairness than he. 

In the above sketch I have purposely confined my- 
self to Dr. Wardlaw's character and conduct as a 
public man. I have forborne to speak of him in his 
private and domestic relations, deeming that a sphere 
too sacred at this season of recent sorrow to be invad- 
ed, in the presence of a public assembly, with how- 
ever reverent a step. Suffice it to say that in all the 
private relations of life Dr. Wardlaw acquitted him- 
self so as to draw around him the strongest ties of 
relative affection ; that he grew old amid an ever- 
deepening tide of domestic love and reverence; and 
that he has carried with him to the grave as large a 
share of veneration and esteem from those who knew 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 83 

him best, as can be expected to fall to the lot of man 
in this imperfect state. 

Such was the man whose departure from amongst 
us we this day thus publicly deplore. We feel that 
in the death of one so great and so good, the church 
of Christ in general has sustained a loss, and our 
own body in particular has received a blow from 
which it must, to say the least, be a long time before 
it can recover. But I would rather direct your 
thoughts to that large debt of gratitude which we 
owe to the Giver of all good, that such a man was so 
long spared to labour amongst us, than give utterance 
to lamentations because after he had done so good a 
day's work he should have been summoned by the 
Master to his rest. Let the painful present be lost in 
the beautiful retrospect of his noble career, and the glo- 
rious prospect which his faith and his patience entitle 
us to entertain of seeing him again, standing in his 
high and honourable lot " at the end of the days.'' 
I do not think of him — I do not ask you to think of 
him — as one whose character was perfect, or whose 
course was all bright. That he had many failings, 
and had committed many sins in the sight of God, 
none would have been more ready than himself to 
acknowledge. That he was without fault even in 
the sight of men I do not take it upon me to affirm ; 
though, were I asked to say what his faults were, I 
declare, as in the court of conscience, I never dis- 
covered them. That he was called to endure severe 
trials of various kinds, some of which, so far as the 
instruments of them are concerned, he ought to have 
been spared, we all know. But of these things it 



84 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

boots not that we should now speak. What sins 
he had have all and for ever been washed away in 
that atoning blood, on which his own hopes of 
eternal felicity were rested, and which it was the 
main business of his life to commend to others. The 
afflictions that were sent upon him by his heavenly 
Father are now all forgotten in that fulness of joy 
which is in God's presence ; or remembered only as 
occasions of thanksgiving for the blessed effects which 
he now sees to have been the fruit of the discipline 
they occasioned. And as for those maligner influences 
that were put forth, if haply they might overcloud 
the evening of his days, they never rested upon his 
fame, and God suffered them not to cast a shadow 
upon his spirit; and now that he has gone to that 
place where there are no shadows and no enemies 
let us pass them by, and try for ever to forget them. 
When I look back upon his career and try to realise 
its true character, the beautiful similitude of Scripture 
rises in my mind: " The path of the just is as the 
shining light, that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day." And when I think how through his 
long life the good hand of the Lord was upon him, 
strengthening him for duty, helping him to bear trial, 
and preserving him from evil until his sun went down 
in the quiet and mellowed lustre of a cloudless evening, 
I find in his case a fulfilment of that grand promise 
of the Lord ; " Because he set his love on me, there- 
fore will I deliver him; I will set him on high be- 
cause he hath known my name. He will call upon 
me and I will answer him; I will deliver him, and 



ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 85 

honour him : With long life will I satisfy him, and 
show him my salvation." * 

There is little fear that the worth and the claims 
of this honoured and beloved man will soon be for- 
gotten. His name is not likely to be overlooked in 
the annals of this ancient city, in which his life was 
spent and on which he has reflected so much honour; 
it occupies a foremost place in the history of that re- 
ligious denomination of which he was the brightest 
ornament and the strongest pillar; and it stands 
inseparably connected with the ecclesiastical history 
of Scotland in the 19th century and with the theolo- 
gical literature of Britain. His reputation is safe; 
his monument is secure; his memory is embalmed. 
We need concern ourselves, then, no further with 
that; but whilst we hold him in honoured remem- 
brance, let us take heed that we forget not the bear- 
ing which his life and labours have upon ourselves. 
Let us keep in mind that the privilege of having 
had such a pastor, such a teacher, such a friend and 
fellow- worker, brings with it corresponding responsi- 
bilities. Let us hear the voice which says to us this 
day with such solemn emphasis, " Be ye followers of 
them who through faith and patience inherit the pro- 
mises/' Let the church especially which has so long 
enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of his pastoral and 
ministerial labours, — the church to which his youthful 
energies, the matured resources of his manhood, and 
the richly ripened fruits of his old age were alike re- 
joicingly devoted, — the church which ever shared the 

* Ps. xci. 14—16. 



86 elisha's cry after Elijah. 

warmest place in his affections, over which he alternate- 
ly watched with a godly jealousy and rejoiced with a 
holy joy: — let that church not only affectionately 
cherish his memory, but see to it that they prove 
themselves worthy of the eminent advantages which, 
through the grace of the great Head of the church, 
they possessed in being so many years under the 
teaching and presidency of such a man. Let his 
enlightened instructions, his wise counsels, his faith- 
ful warnings be continually recalled and pondered. 
And let it be the hallowed ambition of all so to keep 
in memory what he preached unto them, that he shall 
lose no part of his reward, but shall have the honour 
and the joy, in the great day of the Lord, of present- 
ing "every man — every man — perfect in Christ 
Jesus/' 

And oh ! if there be any who have been privileged 
to hear his instructions, but have hitherto refused or 
neglected that great salvation which it was his delight 
to offer in all its fulness and in all its freeness to 
sinners, let me entreat them by all the solemn asso- 
ciations of this day, and by all the touching recollec- 
tions of days gone by which it cannot but call up, 
now at length to relinquish their obduracy, and yield 
to the persuasions which from this pulpit he so often 
addressed to them. Do you not remember, my friends, 
how urgently and how tenderly he besought you to 
be reconciled to God through his Son? Do you not 
remember how his eye would fill with tears and his 
voice would tremble with emotion as he warned and 
exhorted and charged every one of you, as a father 
doth his children, not to put away from you the 



ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 87 

offers of redeeming love? That aspect of pleading 
tenderness shall be turned upon you no more. That 
sweet and earnest voice shall never again fall upon 
your ear. Whatever was the tie that linked you to 
him, it has been severed by the hand of Death. Shall 
the separation be eternal ? It is with you to decide. He 
cannot return to you, but you may go to him. Oh ! 
let the words which he spake to you whilst he was 
yet w T ith you rise in your minds this day, and with all 
the added force which this day's solemnities give 
them, let them plead with you to turn at his reproof, 
to yield to his entreaty, and to embrace the salvation 
which he offered, "What bliss would it convey even 
to that now sainted spirit before the throne to know 
that you too have been given to him as his joy and 
crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord! 



TUE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS. 



THE REY. NORMAN M'LEOD. 



THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPIXESS. 

PSALM xvi. 11. 

"In thy presence is fulness of joy." 

Christian Brethren ! I have selected as the sub- 
ject of our meditations this evening, the nature of that 
happiness which is partially enjoyed now by God's 
saints above, and which shall be perfectly enjoyed by 
them in all its fulness after the resurrection. I have 
been led to choose this topic of discourse, not merely 
because an intelligent apprehension of the glory of 
the people of Grod is calculated to cheer and comfort 
us when suffering for a time from their loss ; and tends 
to quicken our desires, and strengthen our resolutions 
to follow their example : but also because this formed 
the subject of a long conversation which I had with 
your revered pastor the last time I was privileged 
to meet him ; when all my present views on this 
deeply interesting subject were both enlightened and 
confirmed by his own. 

May Jesus Christ, the ever-living Head of the 
church universal, be with us, and enable us by his 
Spirit to seek for truth with uprightness, to receive 
it in love, and to bring forth fruit with patience! 



92 THE NATURE OF 

In entering upon the consideration of the truth ex- 
pressed in the text, I shall not pause to defend my- 
self against the charge which might possibly be brought 
against me by hearers less intelligent and less care- 
fully instructed than those now before me ; — of seeking 
to be wise above what is written, or prying with a 
fleshly mind into things unseen. Without con- 
sciously indeed saying anything which can justify 
such a charge, neither shall I fear it in my desire to 
impress you with such ideas of the happiness of 
heaven as are more in accordance with the nature of 
man and the word of God, than, I am inclined to 
think, obtain among many sincere Christians, who ac- 
cordingly are deprived of encouragements in duty, 
comforts in sorrow, and bright hopes to cheer them 
amid the world's darkness, which they might other- 
wise possess. 

In what then shall consist the believer's " fulness 
of joy" in God's presence? Now it will greatly aid 
us in answering this question regarding our true life 
in eternity, if we first consider one pertaining to our 
true life in time : viz., what would constitute the ful- 
ness of joy now of a man in the full enjoyment of 
all his mental and bodily powers, and in the best pos- 
sible circumstances, perfectly fulfilling upon earth 
God's purpose in creating him? 

In endeavouring to solve this question, I remark, 
that man may be viewed as a sentient, intellectual, 
moral, social, and active being;* and that the "ful- 

* I find this classification in one of my note-books as given 
by Dr. James Buchanan of Edinburgh, but in which of his 
works I do not now remember. 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 93 

ness of his joy" consists in the gratification of every 
part of this his many-sided nature. Thus, for instance, 
enjoyment might be derived through his senses, 
though his intellect were comparatively weak, and his 
moral being depraved ; or he might experience joy 
in the exercise of his intellect, or in the possession 
of holiness, while the body was racked by pain ; or 
delight might be poured through all those channels, 
but yet if he was a solitary being without any one 
with whom he could communicate or share his glad- 
ness ; or if enjoying this sympathy, in addition to 
every other source of happiness, he was nevertheless 
prevented from expressing the thoughts and desires 
of his soul within, by any labour without, and thus 
gratifying his inherent love of action ; — the result in 
either of these supposed cases would not be "fulness 
of joy." But, on the other hand, if we can imagine a 
man with his whole nature in a state of perfect health : 
each portion demanding and obtaining its appropriate 
nourishment ; and all his powers beautifully balanced 
and in perfect harmony with the plan of Grod, " ac- 
cording to the effectual working of the measure in 
every part : " the senses ministering to the most refined 
tastes ; the intellect full of light in the apprehension 
of truth, and strong in its discovery ; the moral being 
possessing perfect holiness and unerring subjection to 
the will of Grod ; the love of society able to rest upon 
fitting objects, and to find a full return for its sym- 
pathies in suitable companionships ; while ample scope 
was afforded for activity by labours congenial to the 
whole man: — then must we perceive how a state so 
perfect would be "fulness of joy" in God's presence 



94 THE NATURE OF 

here below. I do not of course allege that every part 
of our being has the same capacity to afford us happi- 
ness ; or that the flood can pour itself into the soul with 
the same fulness by each of the channels I have men- 
tioned; as that we depend, for instance, in the same 
degree upon our sentient as we do upon our intellectual 
or moral nature for enjoyment. All I mean to assert is, 
that whatever proportion may come through each, God 
has so made us that " fulness of joy" is derived only 
through all. Such is man's actual constitution as he 
came from the hands of his Maker ; and such would have 
been his happiness had he remained unf alien. Placed 
as Adam was in a material world so rich in sources of 
physical happiness, and with an intellect capable of 
unlocking the countless treasures of science ; and with 
a nature pure and spotless, delighting in the excel- 
lent God ; and with society begun in a help meet for 
him ; and with labour begun in the earthly paradise, 
we behold the commencement of a heaven upon earth. 
And had perfect man been translated to another 
region, we cannot conceive his joy to have become 
different in kind though different in degree, on the 
supposition that he remained the same kind of being. 
Now man's fall has not altered this fact. Sin is a 
perversion of human nature, not its annihilation — 
a disorder of its powers, but not a destruction of 
them. Nor is restoration by Jesus Christ the gift of 
a different constitution — as if he made us something 
else than human beings — but it is the renovation of 
the old constitution after its original type. It 
is making the " old man " diseased, bent down, 
paralysed, deaf, blind — a "new man," with frame 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 95 

erect, limbs strong, eyes and ears open, and all his 
powers made fresh and vigorous for immortality. 
And therefore it is that what would be fulness of joy 
to man were he perfect on earth will be his fulness of 
joy, though in a higher degree, when he is made per- 
fect in heaven, This supposition, I repeat it, only as- 
sumes the fact that we shall be the same persons for 
ever — that human nature will never cease to be human 
nature, or be changed into a different species of exist- 
ence — no more than Jesus Christ, the head of his 
church, will ever cease to be what he is, "the man 
Christ Jesus," with a human body and a human soul, 
"the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 

Let us then meditate on the glorious supply which 
God has provided for filling up every part of our 
complex nature in heaven. 

I. I remark, in the first place, that there will be 
" fulness of joy " in God's presence for man's sen- 
tient nature. 

Speaking of the materialism of heaven, Dr. Chal- 
mers truly says : " The common imagination that 
many have of paradise on the other side of death, 
is that of a lofty aerial region where the inmates 
float on ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon 
nothing — where all the warm and felt accompani- 
ments which give such an expression of strength, and 
life, and colour to our present habitation, are at- 
tenuated into a sort of spiritual element, that is 
meagre, and imperceptible, and wholly uninviting to 
the eye of mortals here below — where every vestige 
of materialism is done away with, and nothing left 
but certain unearthly scenes that have no power of 



96 THE NATURE OF 

allurement, and certain unearthly ecstasies with which 
it is impossible to sympathise/' The sensitiveness 
with which many thus shrink from almost alluding to 
the physical element of enjoyment in heaven, because it 
is unworthy to be compared with the spiritual glory 
that is to be revealed, arises no doubt from the half 
suspicion that there is some necessary connexion be- 
tween materialism and sin; thus forgetting that the 
body, and the outward world which ministers to it, 
are God's handiworks as well as the soul; and that 
it is he Himself who has adjusted their relative 
workings. And surely it is quite unnecessary to 
remind you at any length how God has fashioned 
our physical frame, as the medium of communi- 
cation with the outer material world. It is the 
eye through which the soul perceives the glories 
of the summer sky, and searches for its midnight 
stars ; and contemplates splendour of colour, and 
beauty of form; and gazes on the outspread land- 
scape of fertile field, hoary mountain, stream, and 
forest, ocean and island, all incensed with the sweet 
perfumes that scent the breezy air ; and by which too 
it beholds that world of deeper interest still — the 
human countenance of beloved parent, child, or 
friend, bright with all the sunshine of winning 
emotion. — It is the magic instrument which conveys 
to the soul all the varied harmonies of sound, from the 
choirs of spring, and the other innumerable minstrel- 
sies of nature ; as well as from the higher art of man, 
that soothe, elevate and solemnise. It is true 
indeed that there are grosser appetites of the body 
which many pervert so as to enslave the spirit; 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 97 

abusing by gluttony, drunkenness, and every form of 
sensuality, what God the merciful and wise has in- 
trusted to man to be used for wise and merciful ends. 
But there is already perceptible a marked differ- 
ence even here between these and the more refined 
tastes I have just alluded to; inasmuch as the 
former are found in their abuse to be strictly speak- 
ing unnatural, and destructive of man's happiness; — 
and even in their legitimate use decay with ad- 
vancing years, thus giving evidence that the stamp of 
time is upon them as things belonging to a temporary 
economy : — whereas it is not so with the others, such 
as the perception of the beautiful in nature or in art, 
for these abide in old age with a youthful freshness, 
and more than a youthful niceness of discernment — 
and so afford a presumption that they are destined 
for immortality. To the aged saint " the trees clap 
their hands, and the little hills rejoice, and the moun- 
tains break forth into singing;" and when the earth 
is to him empty of every other sentient pleasure, it is 
yet in the beauty of its sights and sounds perceived 
to be full of the glory of God ! 

And so shall it be for ever ! The glorified saint 
shall not be " unclothed " but " clothed upon." He 
will inhabit " a house not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens.'*' The future body is called a " spir- 
itual body " to express its pure and immortal essence ; 
and though it will be somehow related to the present 
body, as the risen is related to the sown grain which 
has perished in corruption, to appear however in a 
new and higher form ; — for " flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God ! " " We shall all be 

G 



98 THE NATURE OF 

changed/' " He shall change our vile bodies, and 
fashion them like to his own glorious body;" and 
in this new body once sown in weakness, corruption, 
and mortality, but raised in power, incorruption, and 
immortality, we shall tread upon the new earth and 
gaze on the new heavens, and walk in the paradise 
of our God ! 

And who can tell what sources of refined enjoy- 
ment are in store for us through the medium of 
the spiritual body in God's great palace of art, with 
its endless mansions and endless displays of glory! 
Well may we say of such anticipated pleasures what 
Isaac Walton says of the singing of birds : " Lord, 
if thou hast provided such music for sinners on earth, 
what hast thou in store for thy saints in heaven!'' 
If this little spot of earth is full of scenes of loveliness 
to us inexhaustible ; if in the contemplation of these, 
in a body buoyant with health and strength, one feels 
it is a joy even to live and breathe ; much more when 
in them all we see God; so that the expression of praise 
rises to the lips, " Lord, how manifold are thy 
works, in wisdom hast thou made them all ; the earth 
is full of thy riches!" — O what may be spread before 
the wondering eye throughout the vast extent of the 
material universe, comprehending those immense 
worlds which twinkle only in the field of the largest 
telescope, and vanish into the far distance in endless 
succession ! — And what sounds may greet the ear from 
the as yet unheard music of those spheres; while for 
ought we know other means of communication may 
be opened up to us, by which to discover things in- 
numerable in the outward world, ministering delight 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 99 

to new tastes — things which do not exist here, or 
elude at least the perception of our present senses. 
Add to all this, the deliverance from all those physi- 
cal evils and defects which are now the sources 
of so much pain, and clog so terribly the aspiring 
soul. For how affected are we by the slightest dis- 
organization of our bodily frame ! A disturbance in 
some of the finer parts of its machinery, which no 
science can discover or rectify; a delicate fibre shad- 
owed by a cloud passing over the sun; or a nerve 
chilled by a lowering of the temperature of the at- 
mosphere, will tell on the most genial temper ; relax 
the strongest intellect ; and dim the brightest imagi- 
nation : while other physical causes quite as mysteri- 
ous, can make reason reel and lunacy ascendant. 
And then there are the infirmities of old age, — 
the constant toil required to satisfy the cravings of the 
body for food and raiment — the wounds and bruises 
which pain it — and often the deformity which disfigures 
it, and cramps the spirit in a narrow and iron prison- 
house: all forming a terrible deduction as yet from 
that joy, which we are capable of deriving even here 
through our physical organization. But at present 
these things cannot be rectified. They are the 
immediate, or more remote, consequences of man's 
iniquity; and under Christ belong to that education 
by which bodily pain is made the means of dis- 
ciplining the soul for immortality. All however 
will be rectified hereafter in the new heavens 
and the new earth ! " There shall be no more 
pain." The body will no longer experience fa- 
tigue in labour ; or be subject to hurtful influences 



100 THE NATURE OF 

from the elements; and never grow old; but be 
glorious and beautiful as the risen body of Jesus 
Christ ! I wonder not that Paul should exclaim along 
with those who had the first fruit3 of the Spirit, 
" Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for 
the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body." 

With these bright hopes let us who are now alive 
seek to glorify God in the body which is to be 
glorified together with Christ. " Know ye not that 
your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost ? If any 
man defile that temple, him will God destroy/' " When 
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also 
appear with him in glory." " Mortify therefore your 
members which are upon the earth." Let us honour 
the body as a holy thing ; and beware how we put 
the chains of slavery upon it, or expose it from sel- 
fishness to hunger and nakedness. Let us endeavour 
even to make Art, that ministers to our sense of 
the beautiful, ever minister to our sense of the 
true and good ; and ever to speak to us of God 
as seen in his works ; or in " his ways among the 
children of men ! " And finally, as we contem- 
plate the body of a departed saint, let us behold 
it in the light of God's own revelation. Let the 
grave in which it lies no longer be associated 
only with the worm and corruption and all the sad 
memorials and revolting symptoms of mortality. Let 
the voice of Him who is the resurrection and the life, 
be heard in the breeze that bends the grass which 
waves over it, and His quickening energy be seen in 
the beauteous sun which shines upon it; and while 
we hear the cry, " dust to dust," let us remember the 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 101 

" very dust to him is dear ; " and that when He ap- 
pears in his glory, He will repair and rebuild that 
ruined temple, and fashion it in glory and in beauty 
like His own ! 

II. But let us, in the second place, pass to a higher 
theme, and consider the joy which will be afforded 
in glory to man's intellectual nature. 

There are many dear saints of God who have little 
sympathy with those who associate fulness of joy in 
any degree with the pursuit or possession of intel- 
lectual truth. These persons have had perhaps such 
weak intellectual capacities as made the acquisition of 
knowledge impossible beyond its simplest elements; 
or they have been stunted in their early years from 
want of education; or they have been placed in 
the Providence of God among the " hewers of w r ood 
and the drawers of water,'' rather than among the in- 
tellectual princes of the people. But let us who can 
know so little, and w T ho as yet think and speak like 
children, not be discouraged by a conscious sense of our 
weak intellectual grasp and scanty information : but 
rather rejoice with Christ in the dispensation by which 
God reveals himself not to talent but to goodness — 
not to the giant intellect but to the babe-like spirit. 
"I thank thee, Father, that thou hast hid these things 
from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto 
babes !" 

God has nevertheless made the acquisition of 
intellectual truth a source of supreme delight. You 
w^ell know how every field in nature has been 
searched, and every quarter of the globe ransacked, 
and many days and nights of patient intellectual toil 



102 THE NATURE OF 

consumed, by men who have endured incredible 
labour, borne up by no other motive than their desire 
of knowing. The immediate joy which is experi- 
enced by a great discoverer when a new fact or truth 
flashes on his mind is to others almost inconceivable. 
We read that when Newton, after years of difficulty, 
was just about to step on the summit of that moun- 
tain from which he knew he was to hear such intel- 
lectual music as never before had sounded in the mind 
of man, and to catch a glimpse of hitherto unseen 
glory of that new ocean of truth which he had 
reached — for 

" He was the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea ! " 

the joy was too great for him — he sat down and wept ! 
The passion to acquire knowledge is not one of the 
least remarkable facts recorded of Solomon. We are 
told that "he spake of trees, and of beasts, and of 
creeping things/' Of God he says, " He hath made all 
things beautiful in its time, also he hath put it into 
mans heart to survey the world and to find out the 
work that God maketh from the beginning to the 
end. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and 
to see the business that was done on the earth, for 
also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep 
with his eyes; then I beheld all the work of God 
that a man cannot find out the work that is done 
under the sun ; because though a man labour to seek 
it out, yet shall he not find it, — yea, though a wise 
man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 103 

find it." There was in all this no doubt " vanity and 
vexation of spirit," for the attempt was vain to find 
satisfaction for the soul in the knowledge of things 
apart from the knowledge of God, or in any 
truth rather than in Him who is true. And 
therefore many perceiving how intellect is often with- 
out God or against Him, and how it fails of itself to 
ensure either goodness or happiness, are disposed to 
deny to it the high place which God has assigned to it 
in the soul, and the exalted delight which He affords 
his saints and angels in its exercise. While the dei- 
fiers of intellect are ever reminded that it alone cannot 
deify but often demonises man, yet let those who slight 
it remember also that it is the head without whose 
inventive genius or directing skill the strong arms of 
labour would be idle. Let the man of material wealth 
or material power recollect that it is the wealth of 
science and the power of mind, possessed perhaps by 
unknown and lonely students, who have all their life- 
time been struggling to obtain their daily bread, and 
to snatch " the crumbs that fall from the rich man's 
table," which have created our manufactures, filled 
our warehouses, crossed our oceans, healed our diseases, 
reared the fabric of law and government, and made 
society what it is ! 

And God, who has made the intellect the source 
of delight to the individual and of good to so- 
ciety here, shall give it such fulness of joy, in kind 
and degree hereafter, as it can possibly receive. 
Whatever its capacity may be, it shall be filled to its 
utmost limit. It will have a clearness, vigour, and 
precision, here unknown to the greatest thinkers. 



104 THE NATURE OF 

All barriers to its progress shall be removed, such as 
the gross body, the poor culture, the little time, the 
few opportunities, the weak or sinful prejudices ; 
and the poorest saint will shine as the sun in its 
strength! Then again, with this increased power of 
knowing, how inconceivably increased will be our 
sources of knowledge ! how boundless the field ! how 
inexhaustible its treasures ! how unlimited the time ! 
how helpful the society ! No one surely imagines 
that we obtain at once on entering heaven perfect 
knowledge ? — perfect I mean, not in the sense of accu- 
rate, but in that of possessing all that can be known. 
This is impossible for any creature, and can be true 
only of Deity. It may be asserted with confidence 
that Gabriel knows more to-day than he knew yes- 
terday. And it is not difficult for us to imagine how 
throughout eternity, and revelling with more free- 
dom throughout God's universe, we may be occu- 
pied by the contemplation of new and endless dis- 
plays of the inexhaustible wisdom and power of God 
in His works ; and see more and more into the life 
of all things ; and continually read new volumes of 
that great book of nature and of truth whose first 
letters we are now learning with difficulty to spell. 
And could we ever be able to count the treasures 
of all worlds, why may not new and varied crea- 
tions be going on for ever, and grander displays 
made of the glory and majesty of the Creator ? Be- 
sides all this, shall not the ways of God as well as His 
w r orks ; and the wonders of His moral government ex- 
tending over all His creatures, and over all worlds, 
and throughout all ages, afford inexhaustible subjects 



FUTURE HAPPINESS: 105 

wherewith to exercise the intellect of man? Is not 
every truth, too, with which we are already acquainted 
linked to another and a higher truth, and when shall 
we reach the end of that awful chain which is in the 
hand of God ? — while there are truths manifold the 
faintest echo of which has not yet reached us from 
the Eock of Ages ! But though for ever we shall 
dive deeper and deeper into the Divine mind, never, 
never shall the creature be able to measure its un- 
fathomable depths. Though for ever we shall ascend 
from one intellectual height to another in the eter- 
nal range of thought, ever approaching, we shall 
never reach, that unseen throne on which is seated 
the i" Am, the Comprehender of all truth ; the Solver 
of all mysteries ; but who Himself, though our Fa- 
ther, must ever be the Mystery incomprehensible ! 

In the few glimpses which we obtain in scripture of 
angelic life, the understanding of the works and ways 
of God evidently forms no small part of it. We read of 
the sons of God crowding round the earth, and hear 
those morning stars singing for joy as they beheld the 
commencement of this new theatre of wonders added 
to those with which they were already acquainted; 
and I doubt not they watched with in tensest inter- 
est the progress of the world's formation, and beheld 
order and beauty growing out of chaotic darkness 
and confusion ; and that during the incalculable ages 
of the past, before man himself appeared upon the 
scene, these intelligent beings gazed with wonder on 
the successive creations of animal and vegetable life, 
whose remains we now gaze at as they lie buried in 
their rocky sepulchres. We know too the deeper in- 



106 THE NATURE OF 

terest which the angelic host have taken in this world 
since it became the abode of man; — how they are 
acquainted with all its inhabitants, and have watched 
the mystery of God's providence unfolding itself from 
age to age ; and how a great multitude of them hovered 
over the hills of Bethlehem at that great era when 
" unto us a Child was born, and unto us a Saviour 
was given, who was Christ the Lord ;" and when in 
sympathy with God and man they ascribed " Glory to 
God in the highest," because of the "peace" that had 
been proclaimed to earth, and of the " good will" 
which was expressed towards man ; and we know 
how they have taken an active share under Jesus the 
King, in advancing the affairs of His kingdom, pun- 
ishing the wicked, and in ministering to the heirs of 
salvation. And to put it beyond a doubt that scope 
is given even here for the exercise of the intellect of 
the angels, we are distinctly informed that all the 
marvellous history now proceeding in this world had 
a direct reference in its original design to the pro- 
gressive education of those higher intelligences, " for 
God created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent 
that unto principalities and powers might be known 
by the church the manifold wisdom of God/' There 
are indeed things even here " which angels desire to 
look into!" 

And though God's saints from earth do not yet so 
prominently appear to the eye searching the unseen, 
as engaged in intellectual pursuits, nevertheless, two 
of them have revisited the earth and appeared in the 
old land of their sojourning in visible form, and bear- 
ing the names of Moses and Elias, so familiar to the 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 107 

church of God, and have spoken in language intelli- 
gible to the children of men, and upon a subject of 
all the most absorbing in its interest to the church 
above and below — the decease which Christ was to 
accomplish at Jerusalem ! 

But I dare not dwell longer on this part of my 
subject, however inviting it may be. Let me implore 
of you to consecrate your intellects to His service ; and 
glorify Him in " soul and spirit " as well as in " body." 
Iieverence the Truth, and seek it in humility, and with 
a deep sense of your responsibility for hoiv you search 
and what you believe ; and remember that mere intel- 
lectual power without divine love, will make you devils, 
not saints. And surely it is an elevating and com- 
forting thing to know, that those who, like your 
Pastor, were here adorned by God with high intel- 
lects which were cultivated with care and sanctified 
for their Master's service, and who thirsted for truth, 
and relished its acquisition with peculiar delight, — 
and the more so when it led them directly to Him 
who is Truth itself, and enabled them the better to 
behold His glory — that all those powers are now 
finding ample field for their exercise, and can orb them- 
selves everywhere without a limit. Not therefore with 
sadness but with joy I can turn from beholding the 
dead unmeaning eye of that lifeless body through 
which the noble mind once shone with mild intellec- 
tual lustre, or shot its keen and piercing light from 
beneath the shaggy eyebrows, as the departing sun 
darts his mellowed beams from beneath a hanging 
cloud to illumine the sombre world, — to contem- 
plate the same mind rising over the everlasting hills, 



108 THE NATUBE OF 

amidst the fresh unsullied brightness of a new born 
day, and advancing for ever without a cloud amidst 
the endless glories of the upper sky ! 

III. But this leads me to remark in the third place, 
that man's chief est joy shall be derived from the per- 
fect filling up of his moral nature. Truly and beau- 
tifully has an old writer [Sir Thomas Browne] said, 
" there is no felicity in what the world adores — that 
wherein God Himself is happy, the holy angels are 
happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy — 
that dare I call happiness, — whatsoever else the 
world terms happiness, an apparition or real delusion, 
wherein there is no more of happiness than the name." 
This is true; — and following out the thought, let us 
reverently inquire in what is God happy, or what 
especially constitutes His glory? He is glorious in 
that creative mind by which things are made so wisely 
with reference to the end each has to serve, and with 
the whole of which each forms a part ; and made too 
so beautiful in their sculptured forms and harmoni- 
ous colours; and so grand and magnificent in their 
groupings and arrangements- He surveys all his 
works, and rejoices in them as " very good." He is 
glorious also in that miracle of a wondrous provi- 
dence by which without a miracle the wants of all 
his endless worlds of creatures are supplied, and by 
which beings innumerable are created and trained to 
glorify and enjoy himself for ever. But while per- 
fection beams in every feature of the divine mind, 
His glory, His joy, is in his character. Not his power, 
so much as the character which wields the power. 
Not his wisdom, so much as that which his character 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 109 

accomplishes by it. Not his majestic sovereignty, so 
much as his majestic character which stamps his 
reign as one of right and therefore of might — com- 
manding, irresistible ! This is the glory which he 
made to pass before the eyes of Moses when upon 
the mount ; and which shone in the face of Jesus 
Christ the Holy One of God ; and which fills the 
souls of the wrapt seraphim when they cry, " Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts, the whole 
earth is full of his glory I" Thus God is happy and 
most blessed because he is "glorious in holiness/' 

And in what, moreover, does the happiness of the 
angels consist but in sharing this life of God ? 
These bright ones, indeed, experience joy in con- 
templating the works of creation and redemption, 
and have been glad in acquiring truth throughout 
many ages ; but the atmosphere which they breathe, 
the light in which they dwell, is holiness. They are 
happy not merely in what they hear, or see, or know 
of the things of God, but chiefly in what they are 
towards God himself. 

And finally, it is in the defect of this in which devils 
are unhappy. For Satan, as he goes up and down 
the earth, may hear those sounds of loveliness 
which delight our ears, but they breathe no music in 
his jarring, discordant spirit ; and he may behold 
those sights of loveliness which delight our eye, but 
he does so as the prowling lion who perceives no 
grandeur in the glorious mountains which echo to 
his savage roar. Nor does the exercise of his subtle 
intellect afford Satan joy, because it is not in har- 
mony with truth, nor centred in the God of truth ; 



110 THE NATURE OF 

but is as a " wandering star, to which is reserved the 
blackness of darkness for ever/' And therefore, 
though he is the " Prince of this world," possessing 
its kingdoms and their glory, yet he carries hell in 
his own bosom, whether he moves among the beau- 
teous bowers of Eden, or dwells for days upon earth, 
in the wilderness, or on the holy Temple, or high 
mountain, with even God manifest in the flesh. He 
has no holiness, and therefore no happiness. 

And thus does our joy depend on this more than on 
ought else. Other things may be, this must be. Other 
things are required to give our joy fulness, this is essen- 
tial to give it existence. For the body may be deprived 
of all pleasurable sensation ; and the intellect unable 
to grapple with the simplest problem : — " in the day 
when the keepers of the house tremble, and those 
that look out at the windows are darkened, and the 
daughters of music are brought low," — yet the fire of 
joy may still survive in the soul, as long as the mind 
can discern that " God is," and as long as a spark of love 
to him remains ! And so, while the Lord provides 
most richly for the supply of every part of man s 
nature, he makes goodness all-essential to his happi- 
ness. Not in the gratification of his sentient tastes ; 
nor in the certainties of pure intellect ; nor in science, 
which " can put forth its hand and feel from star to 
star ;" nor even in the exercise of that genius — so like 
His own creative power ! — whose contrivances change 
the aspect of the world, and whose glorious flights 
can speed to airy regions " which no fowl knoweth nor 
the vulture's eye hath seen : " not in those outer courts 
of God's great temple has the Father willed that his 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. Ill 

immortal children shall find their true life, but only 
in the holy of holies of his own immediate presence, 
and in the possession of the spirit of life and of love 
which is in his first-born Son. Jesus Christ our Lord. 
And I may add, that it was this glory and joy of 
holiness which Jesus himself manifested on earth, 
when "he had no place to lay his head;" and was 
" despised and rejected of men;' M and his "'counte- 
nance was marred like no man's;" and when he 
carried his cross ; and thus showed us that true 
life which he died to obtain, and rose from the 
dead to impart to us by his Spirit. He did not 
come to teach or induce us to be artists or orators, 
or men of mere intellectual cultivation, capable of 
creating a hero-worship. The race who built Nineveh 
and Thebes, or produced the artists and orators, the 
poets and historians, or the world -conquerors of 
Greece and Eome, needed no such teaching as this. 
But he came to reveal to men, who, whatever else they 
were, or whatever else they knew or accomplished, did 
not know their Maker, and " changed the truth of 
God into a lie,'' — he came to reveal to them that eter- 
nal life which was with the Father, that in its posses- 
sion they might have fellowship with the Father, 
with the Son, and with one another, and thus have 
his own joy fulfilled in themselves, " and with all low- 
liness and meekness " walk as He did, " worthy of 
God who hath called us to his kingdom and glory!'' 
I have dwelt perhaps at unnecessary length upon 
this part of my subject, because I trust to all of you 
it is a Christian truism, that our moral nature can be 

likeness. So is it here — 



112 THE NATURE OF 

so shall it be for ever. The sweet peace which the 
believer enjoys in God here; the elevating delight he 
experiences from contemplating his character, and 
saying, " My Father, let thy name be hallowed ! let 
thy kingdom come ! let thy will be done ! " — and in 
the possession of all the graces and ornaments of the 
Christian life, are not only foretastes but earnests and 
pledges of the coming fulness — first-fruits of the ap- 
proaching harvest. "We shall be like him!" O 
blessed consummation, before which every thing else 
vanishes in comparison ! Our souls washed from every 
stain of guilt and made white in the blood of the Lamb, 
and washed too from all the pollution of sin with the 
waters of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost, shall be "faultless," "not having spot or 
wrinkle, or any such thing." The pure and holy 
God shall contemplate us as his own work through 
his Son and Spirit, and shall rejoice in beholding 
that work 'perfect, and every redeemed soul as a 
mirror in whose transparent depths the divine glory 
is seen reflected. And I am persuaded that your 
pastor, your friend, our father and brother, is thus 
" glorified together with Christ " — his confession of 
sin for ever over ; his sense of his own emptiness lost 
in a sense of Christ's fulness ; his ardent longings for 
unsullied holiness gratified as no faith or foretaste 
here even feebly realised in his hours of most pious 
fervour. Should it not delight us to think of even 
one whom we have known and loved here really pos- 
sessing such joy as this ? And ought we not to give 
united thanks to God for his felicity while here we 
sorrow for his loss ! 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 113 

IV. But, fourthly, man is a social as well as a sen- 
tient, intellectual, and moral being ; and as such he 
will have joy in the presence of God in heaven. We 
are made for brotherhood. It was in reference to this 
craving that God said of man when he came perfect 
from his hands, "It is not good for him to be alone/' 
The fact of solitariness is indeed unknown in God's 
intelligent and moral universe. With reverence I re- 
mark that God has existed as Father, Son, and Spirit, 
three persons in the unity of the Godhead. Certain 
it is, however, that for the creature to have joy in 
himself alone is impossible. He would become insane. 
Such a state has never perhaps been experienced. 
The heart will lavish its affection upon the lowest 
forms of animal creation, or upon ideal beings, rather 
than feed upon itself. There can be no solitude 
to him who knows there is a God, nor who possesses 
any religion— for religion is love to a person. And 
even where the society of men is shunned and solitude 
fled to by the weary, this is after all an unconscious 
protest in favour of brotherhood ; for it frequently but 
expresses the bitterness of one who has sought it from 
men in vain, and has been robbed of what he could 
not but feel he had a right to possess as a portion of 
his inheritance. 

But while God has planted in every breast this 
passion for congenial society, and made its wholesome 
play essential for the fulness of our happiness, and 
supplied to so great an extent its want by the family 
institution into which we are born in our early years ; — 
by the " troops of friends " who accompany us during 
our pilgrimage ; and above all by the fellowship of 

H 



114 THE NATURE OF 

the Christian church, in proportion as that fellowship 
is not a mere name, but expresses the intention of 
Christ in gathering his people into a society ; — still 
there are, nevertheless, innumerable drawbacks here 
to anything like its full gratification. Take away the 
time spent in the frailties of our first and second child- 
hood; in the necessary and often absorbing labour of 
life; in unavoidable separations and partings from 
those we know and love — how little time is left for the 
cultivation of the truest friendships ! We are more- 
over severed as yet by death from all congenial minds 
among past generations, and from those who are yet 
to come. Of the many now alive whose hearts would 
beat to ours, could we only meet them, how few can 
stand together on the small space allotted to us on the 
earth's surface. Then again of those whom we know 
best and love best on earth, and who know and love 
us best too, Oh what mutual ignorance must neces- 
sarily exist of innumerable thoughts and feelings 
lying deep down in our inner man, half-hidden, half- 
revealed even to ourselves, but altogether incommu- 
nicable and unutterable by word or sign to others. 
Conscious we may be at times that we stand on the 
same lofty summit and gaze on the same prospect, but 
the atmosphere is too rare to permit of any heard 
communication. And thus in no case can there be 
— not a meeting, but — that blending of soul with 
soul, by which one being, without losing his individu- 
ality, seems completed in the being of another. Add 
to all this the granite walls that rise up between us 
during our wanderings in this desert ! — the differences 
not only from intellect, pursuits, rank, education, but 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 115 

also from character, and those sins and infirmities of 
which all more or less partake — pride, vanity, prejudice, 
envy — one and all making sad drawbacks from the 
fulness of joy which we are capable of deriving from 
intelligent and holy society. We are made to feel 
this in reading the history of the holiest society that 
ever was on earth, that of Jesus Christ and his 
Apostles. Only three years together! often sepa- 
rated during this brief period by dark nights, stormy 
seas, long journeys, and the sin and ignorance on 
their part which made him exclaim, "Nevertheless I 
am not alone, for the Father is with me," — but without 
this sympathy he was indeed alone in his joys and 
in his sorrows. After his departure how soon were 
the Apostles scattered, and how seldom did they meet ! 
For years Paul was unacquainted with any of them, 
and possibly never met them all; while he was quite 
unknown by face to many of those Christian churches 
which read his letters and revered his name. The 
apostle John complains that he could not communi- 
cate to his friends the many things he had to say by 
pen and ink, and longs for personal intercourse: — "I 
trust," he says, " to come unto you and speak face to 
face, that our joy might be full." Ah ! there is no 
tabernacling here with Jesus, nor yet with Moses or 
Elias. Such a dispensation is no doubt wise. It 
marks the condition of those who have no continuing 
city here. It greatly helps to weaken on the one 
hand our tendency to idolize the creatine ; and to 
strengthen, on the other, our faith in God who abid- 
eth for ever; and thus to unite us to one another 
more truly and really than we know. But never- 



116 THE NATURE OF 

theless the joy from Christian intercourse experi- 
enced here, has a promise in it of better things to 
come, and contains a prophecy of the glorious future. 
Union is the gospel watchword. It is the grand re- 
sult of redemption — for holy union is holy love — the 
drawing of heart to heart, because all are drawn by 
one Spirit, through one Saviour, to one God, a union 
which is to be perfectly realized, in a social state as 
dwellers in the city of the New Jerusalem. 

Now consider what ample resources heaven affords 
for the cultivation of the social affections among 
those of the highest intellect, and taste, and moral 
worth in God's universe. "We are come," says the 
Apostle, "to an innumerable company of angels, to 
Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, to God the 
judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made per- 
fect." Here we have summed up the society in 
heaven to which every saint is introduced, and in which 
he shall live for ever. 

There are the angels — These we know of, but do not 
know : and yet how often does it happen with our fel- 
low-men, that those who are unknown to us in our early 
years even by name, have in our later years become in- 
dissolubly bound up with our joy and happiness ? And 
so too the angels whom the saints on earth have as 
yet never seen, shall, nevertheless, when the manhood 
of their being is reached, be their intimate friends and 
associates for ever. But let us not forget that the 
angels know each saint here more intimately than the 
saints are known to their nearest and dearest friends. 
Thus again we are reminded that as earthly friends who 
have known ourselves and our family history during 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 117 

the forgotten days of infancy, are met by us in after 
years with feelings akin to those awakened by old 
kindred ; — even so will the saint on reaching heaven 
find God's angels to be, not strangers, but old friends 
who have known all about him from the day of his 
birth till the hour of his death. It is true that these 
high and holy ones belong to a different order of 
beings from ourselves, and this we might at first ima- 
gine must prevent their sympathising with us if they 
would; but let us remember also that while in material 
forms there is no one common abiding type, by which, 
for example, the vegetable, beast, bird, or fish are 
formed; — yet that it is quite otherwise with intellec- 
tual and moral beings, for these, all and everywhere, 
are made like God, and therefore made like one an- 
other. And finally, though we might think that be- 
ings possessed of such vast stores of knowledge, the 
accumulated wealth of ages, and of such high and 
glorious intellects, would necessarily repel us by the 
awe which they would inspire, and by the sense of 
weakness which they would awaken in a child of 
earth when with all his ignorance he enters heaven, 
yet let us be glad in the thought that in them, as in 
the great Jehovah, all might, majesty, and wisdom 
become attractive when they are combined with and 
directed by love. The love which enables us to look 
up to God so that we can call him Father, will en- 
able us to meet the angels in peace and call them 
brethren. I am persuaded that a saint on earth, 
compassed about as he is with his many infirmities, 
would even now feel more " at home," so to speak, 
with angels than with many of his fellow-men. 



118 THE NATURE OF 

- But "just men made perfect" also form a part of 
the society above. Their number is daily increasing. 
Day by day unbroken columns are passing through 
the golden gates of the city, and God's elect are ga- 
thering from the four winds of heaven. There are 
no dead saints — all are alive unto God, and will live 
together with Him. 

But instead of dwelling longer on this point, I re- 
mark in reference to this glorious society in general, 
that there shall be perfect union among all its mem- 
bers. That union shall not be one of sameness — for 
there can be no sameness either in the past history, 
or in the intellectual capacity of any of its members. 
How vast must be the difference for ever between 
the history of Gabriel, the thief on the cross, the 
apostle Paul, and the child who died yesterday! 
There is no reason whatever to doubt, that each per- 
son shall retain marked individual features of mind, 
and peculiarities of character there as well as here. 
All the stars will shine in brilliancy, and sweep in 
orbits more or less wide around the great centre, but 
each " star will differ from another star in glory." 
Yet this want of sameness is what will produce the 
deepest harmony, such as one sees in the blending of 
different colours, or hears in the mingling of different 
notes. And I repeat it, the bond of this perfectness 
in heaven shall be, as on earth, love. For it is love 
which unites exalted rank to lowly place; knowledge 
to ignorance ; and strength to weakness ; thus bringing 
things opposite into an harmonious whole. See how 
the love which dwelt in " God manifest in the flesh," 
poured itself into the lowest depths of humanity, 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 119 

and met men far down to lift them high up ; so 
that at the very moment, for instance, when Jesus 
was intensely conscious of his dignity, " knowing 
that he came from God and went to God," he 
showed how inseparable was true love from true 
grandeur, for knowing this, " he rose from supper and 
girded himself with a towel, and washed his disciples' 
feet ! " And as Jesus in the might of the same divine 
affection bridged over the gulph which separated man 
from himself and his Father, drawing the impure to 
Him the Holy One that they might become holy; 
and the ignorant to Him the All-knowing that they 
might become truly wise ; — so shall the same Divine 
love include within its vast embrace all in heaven, 
from God seated on the throne down through the 
burning ranks of cherubim and seraphim till it reaches 
the weeping Magdalene, and the sore-stricken Laza- 
rus, and the infant who has passed from the bosom of 
its mother to the bosom of its God! How glorious, 
yet how almost inconceivable, that the poorest saint 
here — the most ignorant, the most despised, the most 
solitary and unknown — shall not only admire and 
love, but be himself the object of admiration and of 
love on the part of the highest spirit there ! — For the 
King who is not ashamed to call the poorest " bre- 
thren," will in his adornments of their mind and 
heart, as well as of outward form, bestowed " accord- 
ing to His riches," make them appear worthy of the 
name, and fit them to move in regal grandeur with all 
saints and angels in the royal palace of His God! 
" Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good plea- 
sure to give vou the kingdom." 



120 THE NATURE OF 

After what I have said, it is unnecessary to prove 
what is assumed as so evidently true, and which I 
cannot really understand how any one should doubt, 
and that is the recognition of our Christian friends 
in heaven. As well ask me to prove this, as to prove 
that I should recognise them if we meet in a different 
part of the country next week after having been separ- 
ated from them only for a few days. What ! shall me- 
mory be obliterated, and shall we forget our own past 
histories, and accordingly cease to know that we have 
been redeemed men? or remembering this fact, shall 
we be prevented from communicating our histories to 
others? Shall beloved friends be there whom we 
have known and loved in Christ here, with whom we 
have held holy communion; with whom we have 
laboured and prayed for the advancement of Christ's 
kingdom ; and with whom we have eagerly watched 
for his second coming, — and shall we be unable 
throughout eternity, either to discover their existence 
or associate with them in the New Jerusalem? Are 
the Apostles now ignorant of each other? Did Moses 
and Elias issue out of darkness in heaven which 
mutually concealed them ; and did they recognise one 
another for the first time amidst the light on Tabor's 
hill, and then return into darkness again? Oh! what 
is there in the whole word of God — what argument 
derived from our experience of the blessings of Chris- 
tian fellowship — what in the character of Grod or his 
dealings with man — what in his promises of things to 
come laid up for those who love him — that could 
have suggested such strange, unworthy, and dreary 
thoughts of the union of friends in their Father's 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 121 

home ! Tell me not that special affection to Christian 
brethren, from whatever causes it may arise, is in- 
consistent with unfeigned love to all, and absorbing 
love to Jesus. It is not so here, and never can be from 
the nature of holy love, and was not so in Christ's 
own case when He the perfect One lived amongst us. 
With supreme love to God, " he loved his church 
and gave himself for it ; " with love to His church He 
yet loved the disciples as "His own/ 5 while one of these 
was specially the loved one; while again beyond this 
inner circle He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus ! 
Tell me not that it is enough to know that our friends 
are in glory. I know this now in regard to some of 
them as surely as I know any thing beyond the grave ; 
yet my heart yearns to meet them " with the Lord/' 
and I bless Him that He permits me to comfort my- 
self with the hope of doing so. Nor let it be alleged 
as an insuperable objection to all this anticipated 
happiness, that knowledge of the saved would im- 
ply knowledge of the lost, and that this would 
balance the pleasure we hope for, by a great pain 
which we should be compelled to endure. For even 
admitting that such knowledge would be possessed at 
all, which is very doubtful, or if possessed give pain, 
which is highly improbable, — yet surely at the worst 
this is a strange way of escaping pain from the knowledge 
that some are lost, by taking refuge in the ignorance 
of any being saved ! I shall not prove this further, 
but express my joy in heartily believing what to you 
and all of us on such an occasion as the present must 
be peculiarly delightful, and what I have therefore on 
that account the more fully dwelt upon: — that we 



122 THE NATURE OF 

shall resume our intercourse with every Christian 
friend ; — remembering all the past, and reading it for 
the first time aright, because read in the full light of 
revealed truth, we shall know and love as we never 
knew and loved here ; and shall sit down at that 
glorious intellectual and moral feast not with ideal 
persons and strangers, but w r ith Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, with Peter, Paul, and John, and every saint 
of God! 

But I have not as yet spoken of one friend there 
who will be the centre of that bright society — " Jesus 
the Mediator of the new covenant ! " " I will take 
you to myself," is the blessed promise. " We shall see 
Him as He is/' is the longed for vision. " We shall 
be like Him," is the hoped for perfection. To know, 
to love, to be in all things like Jesus, and to hold 
communion with him for ever — what "an exceeding 
weight of glory!" Jesus will never be separated 
personally from his people ; nor can they ever possibly 
separate their character, their joy, their security from 
his atoning death for them on earth, or his constant 
life for them in heaven. It is the Lamb who shall 
lead them to living fountains of waters ; and the Lamb 
upon the throne shall still preside over them ; the 
Lamb shall be the light of the New Jerusalem; and 
" worthy is the Lamb!" shall be its ceaseless song of 
praise. Beyond this I cannot go. In vain I endeavour 
to ascend in thought higher than " God manifest in 
the flesh," even to the Triune Jehovah who dwelleth 
in the unapproachable light of his own unchangeable 
perfections ; and endeavour to catch a glimpse of that 
beatific vision which, though begun here in com- 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 123 

munion with God, is enjoyed by "the spirits of just 
men made perfect" there, " according to His fulness," 
and therefore in a measure which to us passeth all 
understanding. If any real spiritual intercourse with 
Jehovah here is "joy unspeakable" — if the gasping 
of the soul to possess more, fails often from its in- 
tensity to find utterance in words, what must it be to 
dwell in his presence in the full enjoyment of himself 
for ever ! There are saints who have experienced this 
blessedness upon earth to a degree which was almost 
too much for them to bear ; and there are some who 
have had glories flashed upon them as if snatched 
from the light beyond, just as the soul was loosening 
from the ligaments of the body and preparing it- 
self for flight from the prison-house to its own 
home — strange moments when things beyond were 
seen by the eye closing on the weary world, and 
overpowering bliss was experienced by the chilling 
heart. And if men, sinful men, yea dying men, can 
ever so feel — what is the measure of the joy which 
fills the souls of the redeemed at this moment in his 
presence ? 

I believe your pastor shares it all ! The man so 
lately with us here, — a member of our ordinary com- 
mon-place society, — a citizen in our bustling popula- 
tion, — one who laid upon himself the lowliest duties 
of life, and shared with serenity its daily cheer, and 
mingled with outcasts to bring them to God, while he 
associated with those who knew God in order to add to 
their happiness : that man is now " a fellow-citizen of 
the saints/' and one of "the household of God." 
As a man, and therefore an heir to earth's inheri- 



124 THE NATURE OF 

tance of what divides man from man, he had his con- 
troversies in his day, and like Paul and Peter his 
" contentions sharp " — yet embraced every oppor- 
tunity of holding Christian fellowship, and while 
longing for more, intensely enjoyed what was given 
him, — he is now one of that numerous, intellectual 
and holy society, loving and "greatly beloved," meet- 
ing many he had known here, and whom he had 
when departing the full expectation of again be- 
holding — meeting many more of whom he had only 
heard and longed to see — wondering at God's love in 
bringing multitudes there whom he did not expect to 
find — but most of all adoring the riches of his grace 
and love in bringing himself there, and exalting him 
to " heavenly places in Christ Jesus !" May the 
Lord give us ail grace to love on earth such as we 
may hope to meet in heaven ; and if we cannot as yet 
enjoy the communion of angels, may we seek for, and 
enjoy, the communion of saints. 

I have already occupied too much of your time, — 
much more indeed than I was perhaps justified in do- 
ing even in treating a topic of such importance, and 
upon an occasion so special ; and I must apologise 
for this, just because of the interest you have taken in 
this day's proceedings, and the demand which has been 
already made on your attention and sympathies. 

It is not then, I assure you, without considerable 
reluctance that I proceed with the further consider- 
ation of my subject; though with as much brevity 
and compression as appear to me to be compatible 
with clearness. 

V. I notice, therefore, in the fifth and last place, 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 125 

that there will be joy in heaven through man's active 
nature. 

It is unnecessary to do more than remind you how 
labour is essential here to our happiness. Eest from 
fatigue is indeed enjoyment; but idleness from 
want of occupation is punishment. Xor is this 
fact a part of our inheritance as sinners. Fatigue 
and pain of body from exertion may be so, but not 
exertion itself. Perfect and unfallen man was placed 
in the garden of Eden " to dress and to keep it." 
And this is what we would expect as the very ap- 
pointment for a creature made after the image of 
Him who is ever working, and who has imbued every 
portion of the universe with the spirit of activity. 
For nothing in the world of nature lives for itself 
alone ; but contributes its portion of good to the wel- 
fare of the whole. And man, as he becomes more 
godlike, rejoices more and more in the dispensation 
by which he is enabled to be a fellow-worker with 
his Father, and is glad in being able to give expres- 
sion by word or deed to what he knows, loves, and 
admires ; and also to make others sharers of the good 
and joy which he possesses. 

And if all this holds true of man now, what reason 
have we for doubting that it shall hold true of man 
for ever? Why should this inherent love of action, 
and delightful source of enjoyment, the most refined 
and elevated, be annihilated ? and what shadow of 
probability even, have we for supposing, that the heaven 
revealed in scripture is a world the occupations of 
whose inhabitants shall be for ever confined to mere 
extatic contemplation? 



126 THE NATURE OF 

This cannot be! It would require overpowering 
evidence to prove it; while all the evidence we pos- 
sess on the subject is against it. — Arguing from an- 
alogy, the presumption indeed is, that those mental 
and moral habits which have been acquired with so 
much difficulty, and at so much expense in this pre- 
sent world, shall not be cast away as useless in the 
next, but there find such scope for their exercise as can- 
not possibly be afforded to them within their present 
narrow sphere. But this presumption is immensely 
strengthened by what we know of the life of the an- 
gels, to which I have more than once alluded, as it 
bears so much upon the several topics discussed by 
us. These angels " excel in strength ;" " do his 
commandments and hearken to the voice of his word." 
As " ministers of his," they " do His pleasure." — 
They are represented to us as ever actively em- 
ployed as messengers of peace or of woe; — some- 
times as ministering to the heirs of salvation, and at 
other times as ministers of God's vengeance. They 
have destroyed armies and cities, delivered captives 
and comforted the disconsolate, and shall be the 
future reapers of the earth's harvest. All this proves 
at least, that the sinless perfection and happiness of 
heaven, are not inconsistent with a life of busy labour, 
and that though God can do without the services of 
either men or angels, yet as they cannot be happy 
without rendering such services to Him, He in accord- 
ance with his untiring, ungrudging benevolence, 
satisfies this craving of their nature. And again we 
ask, if it is so with the angels in Heaven, why may it 
not be so with the saints of God for ever ? Let it be 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 127 

remembered that men have acquired a wider experi- 
ence than even the angels by reason of that very sin 
from which they have been redeemed, and which 
might be thought to render them less fit for the ex- 
alted services of Heaven. The very storms and 
vicissitudes of earth have given a form and a strength 
to these " trees of righteousness the planting of the 
Lord/' which perhaps they could not possibly have 
acquired amidst the sunny skies and balmy air of the 
heavenly paradise. The saints of Grod have learned 
lessons here of patience, endurance, self-denial, and 
faith, which they could not have learned there. Here, 
but not there, are Marthas and Marys with whom 
they can weep : and prodigals whom they can receive 
back; and saints in sickness, or in prison, or in nak- 
edness whom they can visit, and soothe and clothe. 
It is asked indeed in triumph, what employments can 
there be in Heaven for saints? This question I can- 
not answer. The how employed, and where, must be 
yet as pure conjecture. But who will be so bold as 
to deny, that in the new heavens and in the new 
earth, there may be employment for even those 
powers, — such as inventive genius, — which might 
seem to be necessarily confined merely to this tem- 
porary scene? And as to our moral habits and Chris- 
tian graces, dare any one assert that they shall never 
be called into exercise in works and labours of love 
among orders of beings of whom as yet we know no- 
thing? Countless worlds may be teeming with im- 
mense populations, and who knows but such worlds 
may be continually added to the great family of God? 
And if throughout the endless ages of eternity, or 



128 THE NATURE OF 

in any province of God's boundless empire, there 
should ever be found those who were tempted to 
depart from God by the machinations of wicked 
men or evil spirits — permitted then it may be, as well 
as now, to use all their powers in the service of sin and 
against the kingdom of God, and who being tempted 
shall require warning or support to retain them in 
their allegiance; — or those who are struggling in an 
existence, which however glorious demands patience, 
and fortitude, and faith in Jehovah; — if there are 
now, or if there ever shall appear any who need 
such ministrations as can be afforded only by persons 
educated in the wonderful school of Christ's Church \ — 
then can I imagine how God's saints from earth may 
have glorious labours given them throughout eternity, 
which they alone, of all the creatures of God, shall 
be able to accomplish, when every holy habit acquired 
here shall be put to noble uses there. I can conceive 
patience needed to overcome difficulties, and faith 
to trust the living God amidst evolutions of His 
Providence that baffled the understanding; and 
indomitable courage, untiring zeal, gentle love, 
heavenly serenity and intense sympathy, yea, even 
the peculiar gifts and characteristics of each in- 
dividual; — all having their appropriate and fitting 
work to do. And what immense joy will be expe- 
rienced in each, thus finding an outlet for his love, 
and exercise for his knowledge, and full play for 
his every faculty, in that " house of many mansions," 
with all God's universe around and eternity be- 
fore him! — where "labour shall be without fatigue, 
ceaseless activity without the necessity of repose 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 129 

high enterprises without disappointment, and mighty 
achievements which leave behind no weariness or 
decay ; — " where they who wait upon the Lord shall 
for ever renew their strength, and shall mount up 
with wings as eagles, shall run and not be weary, 
shall walk and not faint !" 

Let this thought teach us to labour in harmony 
with the will of God; so that we shall never run 
counter to His plans or His wishes, but now and for 
ever be " fellow- workers with Himself." 

Let it also comfort us when we see " such an one as 
Paul the aged," fall asleep after his day of toil: and 
make us meekly bow our heads when we hear of the 
young man full of zeal and ardour, and apparently 
fully equipped for God's service, suddenly cut down ; 
or when the self-sacrificing missionary seems to have 
spent his strength in vain, and there is no one in the 
wilderness to give him Christian burial. Oh! think 
not that the work of the old saint who loved it so 
well, till the latest hour of his existence, is ended for 
ever; or that the labours of his younger brethren so 
unfinished here, shall never be resumed hereafter, and 
that all this preparation of years has been a mere 
abortion — a mockery and delusion i Believe it not ! 
Xo day of conscientious study for Christ's sake has 
been spent in vain; no habit of industry or self- 
denial acquired for Christ's sake has been acquired in 
vain; nor will the burning zeal to do something for 
Him who died for them, be put to shame, — soul, spirit 
and body, will yet do their work! They who have 
been " faithful over a few things, will be made rulers 
over many things; — and he who has been faithful 
I 



130 THE NATURE OF 

over a very little shall have authority over ten 
cities !" 

But I cannot conclude this subject without remind- 
ing you how this fulness of joy to be derived in 
heaven to the man's sentient, intellectual, moral, social, 
and active nature, shall be expressed in praise. What 
the ordinary ideas are which many excellent Chris- 
tians associate with this heavenly work, or the 
manner in which it is to be performed, would be pain- 
ful to describe. But perhaps it is not too much to 
say that the heaven of many is little more than 
a grand, eternal act of worship by singing praises. 
No doubt the chief work of heaven is praise 
— for praise is the expression of love, admiration, 
joy! And in whatever way this praise shall be 
expressed, whether in the spontaneous exercise of 
individual souls, " singing as they shine " with hymned 
voice, or for ought I know with fashioned instrument 
of golden harp; or by the wrapt gaze of a spirit ab- 
sorbed in " still communion;" — or whether in heaven 
as on earth there may be great days w T hen the sons of 
God, gathered from afar, shall come specially before 
Him, when their joy shall be uttered by outbursts of 
harmony which shall wake the amphitheatre of the 
skies with impassioned Halleluiahs ; — yet it must be 
that each soul in heaven being for ever full of love, 
must flow over in praise continually. Every new 
sight of grandeur or of beauty — every new con- 
trivance of the Creator's wisdom and pow r er — will 
but prompt the beholder to praise the wondrous 
Creator Himself. Every intellectual height reached 
in the infinite progress of the soul, onward and up- 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 131 

ward, will awe it into a pro-founder sense of the glory 
of the great Intelligence. Every active pursuit will 
swell the tide of gratitude and praise to Him in whom 
all "live, move, and have their being;" — while the 
loving and holy soul, ever consciously dwelling in 
Him who is everywhere present, must derive from 
increasing knowledge of, and communion with, the 
infinite Jehovah, a source of exulting endless praise; 
— praise which will be intensified by the intercourse 
with the great minds and great hearts of the " in- 
numerable company of angels, and the just made 
perfect V 3 But if in that voicefal temple any one song 
of praise shall more than any other issue from a deeper 
love, or express a deeper joy, it will be the song of 
the redeemed! — that "new song" never heard before 
by the angels in the amplitudes of creation, and 
which the strange race of mankind alone can sing ; — 
for there are peculiar notes of joy in that song, they 
alone can utter and understand, and in their memo- 
ries alone, echo old notes of sadness that have died 
away in the far distance. And what shall be their 
feelings, what their song, as they gaze backwards on 
the horrible kingdom of darkness from which they 
have been delivered, and trace all the mysterious 
steps by which their merciful and wise Saviour led 
them safely through danger, temptation, and trial, 
and even through the valley of death itself, until He 
bid them welcome in His presence with exceeding 
joy! — What their feelings, what their song, as they 
look around and comtemplate the scene and the so- 
ciety into which He has brought them, and meet the 
gaze of radiant saints and loving friends ! What their 



132 THE NATURE OF 

feelings and their song, as they gaze forward and 
with " far stretching views into eternity" see no limit 
to their "fulness of joy;" knowing that nothing can 
ever lessen it, but that everything must increase it 
for ever; — that the body can never more suffer pain 
or be weakened by decay; — the intellect never more 
be dimmed by age or marred by ignorance ; — the spi- 
rit never more darkened by even a passing shadow 
from any body of sin ; — the will never for a moment 
biassed by temptation ; — the heart never chilled by 
unreturned kindness; the exalted society never di- 
minished by death nor divided in spirit, and along with 
men and angels all (rod's works to see, and all his 
ways to know, and all His plans and purposes to fulfil, 
and His commands obey, for ever and ever ! And 
then, at what might seem to be the very climax of their 
joy, to behold Jesus ! And to remember the lowly 
home in Bethlehem ; and the humble artisan of Na- 
zareth ; He " who was despised and rejected of men, 
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ;" He 
who for forty days was tempted of the devil in the 
wilderness ; — to remember Grethsemane with its trem- 
bling hand and cup of agony; — the judgment-hall 
and Calvary with their horrors of blood and blasphemy 
and mystery of woe; and to see all this history of 
immeasurable love not only recorded in the glory of 
every saint above, but embodied in the person of the 
Saviour, and in the presence of that human form 
which was wounded and bruised for our iniquities, 
and in the human soul that was sorrowful unto death 
— that He might be able to pour into the hearts of 
lost and ruined men the fulness of His own blessed- 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 133 

ness and joy! Oh! blind discoursers are we of this 
ineffable glory ; — children-dreamers of this as yet un- 
revealed vision ! — What are all our thoughts but 
" fallings, vanishing^ from creatures walking among 
worlds not realized V — But let us pray more and 
more that the " God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Father of glory may give unto us the spirit of wis- 
dom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the 
eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that 
we may know what is the hope of His calling, and 
what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
saints " — for though " eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love Him," yet — " God hath revealed them unto us by 
His Spirit !" 

And now, my Christian Brethren, it is possible 
that you may expect me, before closing the services 
of this solemn day, to dwell for a few minutes more 
upon him who is gone. Like a favourite melody you 
would wish to have the pleasant theme repeated again, 
and again. But I dare not attempt to do so. His por- 
traiture has been drawn this day by those who knew 
him long and knew him well, and revered him greatly, 
and who in all respects were more able to speak of him 
than I am. It may however please you to hear a say- 
ing of his, when we last met, in connexion with the 
subject on which I have now addressed you. Having 
expressed to me in his own humble way his longing 
to realise that future happiness which had been the 
subject of our discourse, and I having alluded to the 



134 THE NATURE OF 

translation of Enoch and Elias from the earth to hea- 
ven without suffering, he replied to this effect, " Do 
you know that I envy them not — I have a great de- 
sire to experience all that the church of Christ with 
its living Head have experienced, and to enter the 
grave as well as heaven with both/' 

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: 

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase, 

And the great ages onward roll. 

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, 
Nothing comes to thee new or strange. 

Sleep full of rest from head to feet ; 
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change ! 

But let me speak to you as I am sure he would have 
me speak, not of himself but of something better. 
For if he the pastor, the brother, the father appeared 
amongst us now, with liberty to address us, what 
would he say? I think I can give some answer to 
this question. If he ever preached the gospel he 
would do so again! If he ever spoke to you in the 
name of His Master and invited you by the weight 
of His authority, the tenderness of his love, the great- 
ness of His work, and the all-sufficiency of His grace, 
to believe and be saved, he would do so now. There 
would be no change in his message, and no change 
in himself, but in his greater likeness to Jesus in 
meekness, humility, earnestness and love. — And if he 
spoke at all of the glory of the other world, it would 
only be with reference to our present duties. It 
would be to destroy the false hopes of the unbeliever, 



FUTURE HAPPINESS. 135 

the hypocrite, the sensual, the profane and the unre- 
generate ; — to remind such that " unless born again 
they could not see the kingdom of God." It would 
be to encourage the timid, strengthen the weak, 
cheer the desponding, rouse the slothful, and console 
the mourners in Zion, by the assurance conveyed from 
the whole church of the redeemed above, that their 
labour was not in vain in the Lord ; — " that they 
who sowed in tears would reap in joy;" — and 
that they who trusted God would " never be put to 
shame !" And how would you listen to such a sermon 
if addressed to you by the old familiar voice, — and if 
addressed to you by name? Would you reject the 
message, and equally despise the warning and the 
invitation? Would you put away the cup full of 
God's mercy offered to you, and in its stead snatch 
the cup full of this world's unsatisfactory and degrading 
pleasures? Is it thus you would treat your Minister 
sent specially to you as a Messenger from God ? You 
are shocked by the very thought ! It could not be. 
— But Oh! what if you are thus treating the Saviour 
himself, his Lord and yours ! 

I beseech you, then, by all the solemnities attending 
the departure of your patriarch minister to give an ac- 
count of his faithful ministrations among you for half- 
a-century, added to every argument you ever heard from 
his lips; — by the love and mercy of Jesus Christ made 
more manifest in the case of every saint kept here 
from falling and made meet for heaven ; — by the 
greater nearness of death to ourselves and the sud- 
denness with which in this time of pestilence it may 
seize us ; — by all the joy that is set before the people 



136 THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS. 

of God, and by all the righteous vengeance which shall 
overtake the despisers of his mercy; I beseech you 
to receive Jesus Christ — the living personal Saviour 
as your Saviour; to pardon you through his blood, 
to sanctify you through his Spirit ; to "keep you from 
falling, and to present you faultless in his presence 
with exceeding joy!" 

" Now the Grod of peace, who brought again from 
the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the 
sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
make you perfect to do His will, working in you to 
do that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 






TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 



JOHN MACFARLAHE, LL.D. 



TRIBUTE TO DR, WARDLAW. 



I cannot conclude this afternoon's service without 
adverting to the solemn event which I am sure has 
been uppermost in your minds, even amid the sacred- 
ness of the sanctuary course. Little did I anticipate 
occupying a vacant pulpit, when I engaged to be 
your lamented pastor's substitute to-day. I then 
only thought of honouring myself, by serving one 
whom all were delighted to oblige. Him, however, 
we can serve no more. At the early dawn of yester- 
day he was for ever relieved from all the cares of 
this changing scene and from all the duties of the 
church militant. He has entered into his rest. 
Having followed Jesus in the regeneration, he has 
gone to be with him in the skies. Perhaps not since 
they were uttered by the great apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, could these words have been more appropriately 
used in the dying hour, than by him whose face you 
shall see no more on earth — " I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day — and not 
to me only, but unto all them also that love his ap- 
pearing." 



140 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 

To attempt aught like a sketch of Dr. Wardlaw's 
character would be altogether presumptuous on my 
part — as the properly qualified person for this duty 
will no doubt perform it in due time. I cannot, 
however, leave this pulpit without paying a tribute, 
however humble, though hastily prepared, and almost 
on the dawn of this Sabbath, to the memory of a 
man whom, from my earliest recollections, I was 
taught to love and admire, and who, amid the family 
circle wherein I was nurtured, was ever regarded as 
one of the most beloved of friends, and one of the 
most accomplished among the princes of Israel. 

All the commonplace eulogies, so thoughtlessly 
often heaped upon others, may, with strict truthful- 
ness, be affirmed of Dr. Wardlaw. But this is saying 
the least of it — I question if, in modern times at 
least, his superior has passed before him into heaven ; 
and that superiority I am disposed to claim for him 
in every view which may be taken of his character. 

In him the Christian had a noble representative. 
That he had his infirmities none were readier than him- 
self to admit, and with all sincerity of contrition, and 
he confessed these before the Father. Notwithstand- 
ing, I think these infirmities, whatever they might 
be, were only apparent to the Searcher of hearts 
himself — a more faultless character in the eyes of the 
world I have not known. If I were asked to specify 
what his failings were I candidly own I could not do 
it. I do not know what they were — so blamelessly 
and guilelessly did he go out and in before men. O 
it was a beautiful spectacle to see the combination in 
him of the majesty and meekness, the purity and 



TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 141 

gentleness, of the Christian deportment ! His was 
not the wisdom which is " earthly, sensual, and 
devilish, for where envy and strife are, there are 
confusion and every evil work/' But his was the 
wisdom that cometh from above, and which is " first 
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, 
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
without hypocrisy." I appeal to those who knew him 
so long and so well, if his life was not a marvellously 
successful effort to exemplify the apostolic injunction, 
" Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and 
if there be any praise, think on these things." Yes 
— these were the things which he carefully selected 
for thought — for deep, holy, and prayerful thought, 
and hence the living expression of them in his whole 
demeanour as a Christian man. There was in his 
whole character a wonderful combination of the 
peculiarities of the two apostles Paul and John — 
greatness and goodness — power and gentleness — 
fervour and modesty — zeal and love — courage and 
caution — forwardness and prudence — brilliant action 
and holy meditation. Catholicity was alike an ele- 
ment in the two disciples — they were not sectaries. 
Though decided in their convictions, and ready to 
speak them out, and act them out, before the church 
and the world, they contracted no unlovely spites 
against others, and eschewed the dirty, smoky cabins 
of sectarianism and bigotry. So did Dr. Wardlaw, 
He was the embodiment of the principle of the Evan- 



142 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 

gelical Alliance. It was little to him what might be 
the " ism " of any man, provided he was a lover of 
Jesus and of his truth. Hence he lived in peace 
with us, and we all loved him of every denomination. 
You, my friends, have many in all Christian circles, 
who weep with you this day because our friend 
sleepeth. I never expect on earth to be honoured 
and blessed with such Christian friendship as was 
Dr. Wardlaw's. Over the memory of it I could sit 
and both weep and sing — weep that it is gone, and 
sing for gratitude that it was ever mine. 

In him the Christian advocate was truly a finished 
portrait. Taking his position, even in young life, by 
the brooks of Zion, he wisely selected the pebbles 
which were afterwards slung at the head of Error. 
He has at length, no doubt, fallen on the field, but it 
is that he may rise again : whereas he has, in his time, 
laid prostrate many a foe to the truth of Grod, whose 
resurrection morn shall never dawn. As an Ex- 
pounder of doctrine, he was textual, logical, and 
masterly. As a Critic, he was profound, acute, and 
candid. As a Philosopher, he was Christian and yet 
scholarly ; simple, yet comprehensive. He seemed to 
be equally at home in synthesis and analysis, which is 
rather a rare combination of excellences. As a Con- 
troversialist, he was fearless though kindly, truthful 
though courteous, and uncompromising though rea- 
sonable. In the arena his weapon was always known 
by the gleam of its polish, always felt by the keen- 
ness of its edge, and often pronounced victorious by 
the perfect success of its fence. His arena itself was 
always a select one, always a scriptural one. It mat- 



TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 143 

tered not what he advocated — it was advocated on 
Bible ground, and with a truly Bible spirit. If he 
interceded for the great citadel itself of Christian 
truth, he took all his arguments from the Word of 
God. With that he slew the Socinian — with that he 
slew the demon of slavery — with that he battered 
down the high places of civil and ecclesiastical des- 
potism — and with that he built up the cause of God 
and righteousness. In perfect self-possession, in 
thorough and honest scrutiny of the subject, in bland 
and gentlemanly treatment of his opponent, and in 
considerate and liberal handling of " the other side," 
Dr. Wardlaw, as a controversialist, has not had his 
equal, certainly not his superior, amongst us. 

As a Christian Author, he stands foremost among 
the first, not only as regards his voluminous writings, 
but as regards their calibre, their fame and their use- 
fulness. There are few indeed of the Christian doc- 
trines which he has not beautifully elucidated, and 
few of the Christian precepts which he has not clearly 
and forcibly explained. His works remain among 
the most valuable treasuries of the church of God. 
One of his earliest efforts is one of his best — his work 
on the Socinian Controversy ; and his last work is not 
second to it — on Miracles — wherein with a giant's 
force, though wielded with the simplicity and gentle- 
ness of a little child, he demolishes the modern struc- 
tures of infidelity. It is singular that God should 
have honoured him to begin and close his authorship 
with rearing before the citadel of Zion two such for- 
tifications in defence of the very vitals of our faith. 

As a Christian Minister, he was faithful, affection- 



144 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARBLAW. 

ate, and earnest. His aim was to win souls to 
Christ, and ye are his witnesses how eloquently and 
pathetically, and even unto weeping, he pled with 
sinners to turn from their evil ways unto God. His 
discourses, published and unpublished, have made his 
pulpit better known in this country, I may say in 
Europe and America, than that of any living preacher. 
Many have envied you the privilege of having such a 
pastor to break among them the Bread of Life. His 
style of preaching was all his own. Of knowledge it 
has been said, that it is sometimes one's own offspring, 
and sometimes it is adopted. There was nothing 
adopted in the manner or matter of Dr. Wardlaw's 
preaching. Originality was evident in the smooth, 
deep, clear, steady current of his thoughts, in the 
calm but sublime cast of his oratory, and in the tact, 
as well as genius, of his address. Like Hall of Bris- 
tol, or Chalmers amongst ourselves, he stands out in 
the pulpit as alone in the possession of those excel- 
lences for which his name will be handed down to 
future generations. 

In him Christian philanthropy had one of its most 
impressive illustrations. His heart was large and it was 
warm. Every human interest had a place there, and 
every human being had an advocate there. He had 
a tear for every tear, and he had a smile for every 
joy. He had a curse there for every foe to human 
happiness and holiness, and he had a blessing there 
for every friend of man as a citizen of the world or a 
traveller to eternity. He might not be Howard mili- 
tant, but he was Howard eloquent, and compassionate, 
and practical. 



TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 145 

And what was he in the world? Let our great 
city name another citizen equally illustrious. His 
name has made Glasgow known wherever the English 
language is spoken — wherever God's truth is loved — 
wherever men are called Christians. She has had 
many sons who have done her honour, but this one is 
the most honourable to her of them all ; and when men 
shall cease to speak of the achievements of learning 
and of the explorations of science, and of the marches 
and triumphs of commerce, they will be still sitting 
at the feet of Wardlaw, learning the way to heaven 
by the cross of Calvary. He may not have be- 
queathed to his native place thousands of gold and 
thousands of silver, like some of our princely Chris- 
tian merchants, but he has left her something far 
better — he has left a name and a character of the 
highest repute for intellectual and religious greatness, 
and literary contributions which shall never be ex- 
hausted, though millions yet unborn draw upon them 
for their spiritual guidance and safety. Such a man 
is independent of the monument of granite — he has 
reared his own monument with his own hands — 
though, if such were thought creditable to the city, I 
know of none who have merited such a public testi- 
monial more than our departed father. He was the 
friend of the poor — the patron of every charity — an 
associate of every institute for the present and lasting 
good of his fellow-citizens and his fellow-men. 

In the more private walks of life he was indeed a 
most lovely character, and in all his relationships 
acted throughout as one who, having first of all loved 
Jesus Christ, allowed the overflowings thereof to 



146 TRIBUTE TO- DR. WARDLAW, 

fall upon, anoint, and bless all within the circle of its 
approach. But upon these and many other traits 
of character I cannot, I ought not, to enter. 

And now — all is over — he is gone. On that vener- 
able countenance we shall not look again — that sweet 
persuasive tongue we shall never hear again — -that 
warm grasp of friendship which made our inmost 
hearts thrill with joy — I was going to say with pride — 
we shall feel no more; no more shall we have him as a 
leader and commander — no more shall his light re- 
volve in our little orbit, nor the music of his harmo- 
nious affections be heard in the land. True; but 
neither any more shall his noble nature sustain the 
rude shocks of this world's cruelty, nor his warm 
heart be crushed beneath the foot of ingratitude, nor 
the innermost sanctuary of his divine life be attacked 
by those evil powers and principalities who go about 
seeking to devour the strong and the valiant in Zion. 
No, no; our father is safe and glorified now. On his 
entrance into Heaven, he would receive the welcome 
of the brightest and best of the sons of creation — no 
suspicions, no accuser would meet him there — there 
the Searcher of hearts w r ould enfold him in his arms, 
and crown him as one of the martyrs and confessors; 
and there he has now taken his seat beside the Re- 
deemer, whom he so long and so brilliantly served, 
and there he is already farther advanced in the science 
of salvation by grace than he ever could have reached, 
though he had lived, as he lived here, for generations 
to come. Surely, if ever man of woman born found 
in heaven what was congenial to a new nature, Dr. 
Ward! aw is that man. Let us not mourn, then, for 



TRIBUTE TO DR. WxVRDLAW. 147 

him. He has nobly fought the fight — let us rejoice 
in his graciously bestowed reward of eternal life. 

But to conclude, my beloved friends, I must say 
that as your privileges under Dr. Wardlaw's ministry 
have been great, so also must your responsibility be. 
"When the son of the prophet let his axe-head fall into 
the water, he said to the man of God, " Alas ! master, 
for it was borrowed." Alas ! I had but the loan of 
it, and what account shall I give to the lender ! So 
may you say as your pastor disappears among the 
swellings of Jordan, — Alas! Lord, he was borrowed; 
and what shall we say to the Giver? Yes, this is 
true, and though no Elisha be here to raise the in- 
strument from the deep and restore it, yet do we 
know that, by the voice of the Son of God, he and 
you again must meet, and what shall you say in that 
day? O think seriously of this — it is no trifle; I 
know of no congregration who ought to fear and 
tremble more than the one I now address, if then you 
are found to have been despisers of the grace of God. 
But may God in his great mercy grant that, in that 
day, you and he may meet to hail one another as 
father and children, and then pass away into the 
new heavens, to dwell for ever with the Lord. 



EDINBURGH : 
FULLARTON ANT) MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK. 



DISCOURSES AND SERVICES 



OK OCCASION OP 



THE DEATH 



OF THE LATE 



KEY. KALPH WAEDLAW, D.D. 



A. FULLARTOtf AH) CO.: 

LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 



1854. 



ONE SHILLING. 



LATEST WORK OF DR. WARDLAW. 



In small Svo, price 4s. cloth, second edition, 

ON MIRACLES: 

BY RALPH WARDLAW, D.D. 



" What sign showest thou, then, that we may see and believe thee ? 
What dost thou work?" — The Jews to Jesus. 

" The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." — 
" Though ye believe not me; believe the works."— Jesus to the Jews.' 



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